Der geschenkte Tag. Kastor & Polydeukes

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the eponymous, expansive painting Der geschenkte Tag [The Given Day] (2021–2022), which is made up of 24 large-format canvases and measures in total 6 × 65 meters. The piece is based on the Ancient Greek myth of the Dioscuri, the twins Castor and Polydeuces: the inseparable brothers are divided by the death of Castor, a mortal, in a fight. Devastated by sorrow, the immortal Polydeuces pleads with his father Zeus, saying he is willing to give up his own immortality to save his brother. Touched by this love, Zeus grants the two brothers a shared life—a life between the worlds. Henceforth the brothers alternate between a day spent in Hades, the realm of the dead, and a day on Olympus amongst the gods. In the prologue to the exhibition, drawings and a sculpture by Michael Müller introduce the myth—interacting with works from the Städel collection. The Hades (2022) work group, which will be on view in the Garden Halls, sees the artist quite literally taking visitors on a tour of the “underworld”.

By means of painting while also going beyond its boundaries, Müller thus presents a multi-faceted artistic reflection on the meaning of time, mortality, and love that endures outside time. In the process, he weighs up the potential of abstraction and asks the crucial question: Can an abstract artwork tell a story?