Ulrike Müller at Susanne Vielmetter provides a dutiful effort at better understanding geometrical form through a simplification of pattern, towards an idea of necessary and sufficient with her On Edge opening. It is in the sense of, not so much contrast, as it is boundary which gives us a measured sense of completeness. In such a decadent age of insurmountable worldly pleasures, to find beauty and contentment with the concept of limits makes her artistry positive in its affirmation of overcoming slothful gratuity.

Hinges, 2022
Vitreous enamel on steel
15 ¹⁄₂” x 12″ x ³⁄₄” [HxWxD] (39.37 x 30.48 x 1.91 cm)
Signed and dated verso
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Brica Wilcox

Perhaps we should involve ourselves particular with Sequitur in one particular instance and its glorious self-reliance on a novel idea of order. We do not have that regimented Byzantium of man. We do have regimentation, but in a form which is inexacting yet nevertheless beautiful. Does this not summarize for us the beauty of the mystery of life? So uncountably uncontainable the Natural World is and yet how necessary we must be in determining its motion.

It is that precise emphasis of control which confuses the precept of order. For it immediately moves us towards dominion. How can these light tones ever be so mendacious in their motivations? The curved line imposes upon us the necessary idea of both order and balance. Of motion which is not harmful. Of what is so precious to remember, and that is worldly beautiful is knowable.

Instrumentarium, 2022
Chine collé on paper
11″ x 8 ¹⁄₂” [HxW] (27.94 x 21.59 cm); 13 ¹⁄₄” x 10 ³⁄₄” x 1″
[HxWxD] (33.65 x 27.3 x 2.54 cm) Framed
Signed and dated recto
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Brica Wilcox

Hinges, 2022
Vitreous enamel on steel
15 ¹⁄₂” x 12″ x ³⁄₄” [HxWxD] (39.36 x 30.48 x 1.9 cm)
Signed and dated verso
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Brica Wilcox

It is here where the artist shines in discencumbering us from both the blind jabbing into abstractia when reducing elemental forms of civilized man’s conscious experience without the appearance of disorderly conduct and, even worse, imitation. For the carefully poised compositions of 15.5” x 12.75” describe that wordless wonder of simplicity in form. This habit of negating more, of quelling the irascible body’s excitement to being alive requires a subdued formality. One of modest and not haphazard formations of shape. And we have not even touched upon the distinction of paper and steel media to represent these economies of beauty.

Which helps us arrive at the daring thought: if beauty is good to experience, why must we restrict our sensation of it? Perhaps ultimately it is because beauty does not serve ourselves alone. And it is in this refinement where we are moved to become better agents. To act as best as possible – for what else is beauty but the absence of the worst? – using the least quanta of action in Nature.