NIKOLAS MÜLLER: BEHINDERT DIE ANFÄNGE
Buchpräsentation und Gespräch mit Nikolas Müller, Sebastian Fritzsch, Michaela Predeick und Carmen Strzelecki
Fri, 26 September 19 Uhr

 

Language: German

We are delighted to present Behindert die Anfänge, the new book by Nikolas Müller, edited by Michaela Predeick, at the Temporary Gallery.

For its release, Nikolas Müller, publisher Carmen Strzelecki, editor Michaela Predeick, and artist and filmmaker Sebastian Fritzsch will discuss the publication. The conversation aims to provide an in-depth insight into the connection between artistic practice and living with mental illness. The aim is to promote open discourse in which personal experiences are reflected upon and artistic forms of expression are highlighted as possible approaches to these topics.

Both Nikolas Müller and Sebastian Fritzsch, whose exhibition Schlaf. Portrait and Souvenirs is currently on display at Temporary Gallery, draw on their own experiences with mental illness in their work. While Müller focuses particularly on his past hospital stays, dealing with his own diagnosis, and navigating a challenging everyday life as an artist with altered perception in the autobiographical literary vignettes presented in his book, Fritzsch also conveys an artistic exploration from the perspective of someone affected by mental illness through cinematic and visual means. Together with Carmen Strzelecki and Michaela Predeick, who accompany the topics from a journalistic and scientific perspective, respectively, the event aims to stimulate discussion that broadens understanding of mental illness and highlights the potential of art as a form of communication and coping strategy.

Nikolas Müller: Behindert die Anfänge
Edited by Michaela Predeick
StrzeleckiBooks
2025

Cologne-based artist Nikolas Müller creates enticingly unstable visual worlds in which he combines watercolor painting with the logic of digital spaces. With Behindert die Anfänge, he now presents a book that reflects his diverse media practice and, for the first time, also showcases his textual work. Based on his diploma thesis at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, he has collaborated with editor Michaela Predeick to create a body of text that transforms his own experiences with mental illness into a remarkable literary form: individual sentences oscillate between poetic self-portrayals and humorous slogans of empowerment, activist demands, and concrete references to dealing with people with mental illness and disabilities. In between, autobiographical vignettes address the confrontation with institutions—be they psychiatric clinics, the employment office, or one's own therapist—characterized by harsh power imbalances. The text thus provides a reality check to the delicate and playful panoramas of Nikolas Müller's watercolors, a comprehensive selection of which is collected in Behindert die Anfänge.

Biographies:
Sebastian Fritzsch (born 1977) lives and works in Cologne. He studied theatre and cultural studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin as well as photography, artistic design and film direction at the HGB Leipzig and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. His multifaceted work makes use of various media - including film, painting, drawing, collage and ceramics. His work has already been shown in numerous exhibitions in NRW, Berlin and beyond. In the Temporary Gallery, his photographic work takes centre stage for the first time.

Nikolas Müller (born 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist from Cologne. After studying design in his hometown of Trier, he initially worked as a 3D designer before beginning a degree in fine art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne under Johannes Wohnseifer, which he completed in 2023. In his watercolors, drawings, 3D animations, and texts, he draws on his own biography and processes themes such as fragile masculinity, mental illness, social exclusion mechanisms, and disability into reflections rich in color and form. His artworks have been nominated for several awards, including the Ramboux Art Prize of the City of Trier (2018) and the MuVi Prize of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2019). In 2020, he won the award for best music video at the Mumbai International Short Film Festival. Solo exhibitions have been held at art spaces such as the Cologne art association kjubh (2025, at the invitation of Doris Frohnapfel), GLASMOOG (2023, curated by Meike Eiberger), and Richas Digest (2019, curated by Aneta Rostkowska).

Michaela Predeick (born 1987) studied art history, German language and literature, and theater, film, and television studies in Cologne and worked under the artistic direction of Karin Beier in dramaturgy at the Schauspiel Köln and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. Since 2019, she has been a research assistant at the University of Cologne. There she is writing her doctoral thesis on figurations of depression in contemporary literature and theater and, as a dramaturge, is organizing the international literature festival Poetica. In addition, she regularly curates and moderates literary events and is co-founder of the unruly readings series for literature and performance. Her interdisciplinary academic and artistic-journalistic work focuses on aesthetic negotiations of topics such as depression, therapy, and mental health. In 2020, she published the illustrated book Therapy Flowers with StrzeleckiBooks on World Mental Health Day..

StrzeleckiBooks was founded by Carmen Strzelecki in 2009. The publishing house publishes books on art, film, and music, ranging from exhibition catalogs to artist books and theoretical essays. The program includes established artists such as Harun Farocki, Philip Guston, and Andreas Schulze, as well as young, lesser-known artists.

 

Fundingg and support:
Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Kulturamt der Stadt Köln