Review
“The establishment of a trustworthy gallery atmosphere is a theme also humorously considered by Fareed Armaly and Christian Philip Müller's ‘Auftakt’ (1990). The work was originally conceived within the context of the Köln Show, an extensive event arranged by several of the most prominent galleries in Cologne at the time, when the city played an important role in the international art market. All of the galleries located in the same building, and the staircase connecting them became a main arena for socializing. To contrast the silence of the white gallery spaces, the artists piped a piece of muzak, or what they called ‘functional music,’ through the stairwell. They had commissioned this music with the brief that it enhance art sales. Armaly and Müller then rerecorded the muzak, this time overlaying the sounds of socializing in the transnational space of the stairwell.
For a subsequent touring exhibition, the artist then brought the ambience of the Köln Show to a series of galleries in Stuttgart, Graz, and Zurich, exporting the sound of the regions commercial art center to its relative periphery. While the recording was played in transitional spaces, outside of the galleries (‘Auftakt’ means ‘prelude’), the work also consisted of a series of five silk-screened, framed texts, exhibited in the gallery spaces. The texts were excerpts from sales brochures for Muzak, about constructing environments for stimulating human behavior. Armaly and Müller added texts of their own, similar in style and tone, extending their construction of the perfect gallery opening atmosphere: an environment for socializing, networking, spectatorship—and economic transaction.”
(Excerpt)