JOHN KLECKNER
IRGENDWO
Sustain, 2021
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
100 × 130cm
Opening reception:
Friday 19 June 18.00 – 21.00
Photographs: Trevor Good (except installation views)
Müller Contemporary is pleased to present Irgendwo, a solo exhibition by John Kleckner.
Kleckner’s paintings, drawings, and collages occupy a space somewhere between abstraction and figuration. His works are built from finely rendered fragments, atmospheric fields, abrupt shifts of scale, and moments of stylistic collision. Forms appear suspended, drifting, or caught in delicate states of transition. They suggest landscapes, bodies, objects, or natural structures, yet resist settling into a fixed image. This tension between recognition and uncertainty gives the works their particular charge: they seem familiar without becoming fully identifiable.
In Irgendwo, Kleckner brings together a selection of paintings and works on paper that move between precision and openness. Softly blurred backgrounds create a sense of distance, while sharply described elements interrupt the surface with vivid colour and concentrated detail. The compositions often feel provisional, as if caught in the middle of an event: something approaching, detaching, falling, hovering, or transforming.
The exhibition’s title, Irgendwo, points to this suspended state. It evokes a location that is real but undefined, a mental or pictorial territory in which perception remains unstable. Kleckner’s works are not escapist, but they do open onto a space apart from immediate reality. Nature, solitude, resilience, and balance appear not as themes to be decoded, but as recurring pressures within the image.
John Kleckner has exhibited professionally since 2003, with solo exhibitions in Athens, Berlin, Los Angeles, Milan, Palermo, Paris, and Stockholm. For many years he was represented by the now closed Peres Projects and has also exhibited with Galerie Judin in Berlin. His work is held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has participated in institutional exhibitions at venues including the Athens Biennial, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain in Bordeaux, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Lissone, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, Riso Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia in Palermo, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In 2021 he received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant, and in 2022 he was one of three finalists for the 26th Wilhelm Morgner Preis for painting in Soest, Germany. He is Professor of Painting and Drawing at Bard College Berlin.
John Kleckner is known for making finely detailed paintings, drawings, and collages that use mimesis, fragmentation, juxtaposition, synecdoche, and stylistic clashing to explore ideas and feelings about nature, resilience, solitude, perception, and balance. He has exhibited his artwork professionally since 2003, presenting 11 solo exhibitions at galleries in Athens, Berlin, Los Angeles, Milan, Palermo, Paris, and Stockholm. His works are featured in prominent collections including, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA in New York, Magasin 3 Konsthalle in Stockholm, Deste Foundation in Athens, the Miettinen Collection in Berlin, and the Saatchi Collection in London. He has exhibited in institutions such as the Athens Biennial in Greece, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam, CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain in Bordeaux, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Lissone, Kunstraum Innsbruck, the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, the Riso Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia in Palermo, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In 2021 he received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant, and in 2022 was among 3 finalists for the 26th Wilhelm Morgner Preis for painting in Soest, Germany. He is a professor of painting & drawing at Bard College Berlin.
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
100 × 130
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
80 × 110
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
135 × 75 cm
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
70 × 40 cm
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
50 × 30 cm