A Cosmological Journey with Matt Mullican: “ABOVE AND BELOW THE THREE WORLDS” Exhibition

The distinctive industrial texture of Berlin’s Potsdamer Strasse can sometimes turn a person’s mind into a complex map. While walking through the city’s layered structure, you realise that every sign and every symbol is actually part of a vast system. Galerie Thomas Schulte’s space on Potsdamer Strasse is currently inviting us into the mind-rooms of a master who has long been trying to make sense of this complexity: Matt Mullican. This comprehensive exhibition titled “ABOVE AND BELOW THE THREE WORLDS” opens the doors to Mullican’s famous cosmology, meticulously woven since the 1970s. The atmosphere on this floor is calm and ordered, like a library where knowledge walks hand in hand with intuition, diagrams with dreams. Mullican does not merely present drawings on paper or sculptures; he reconstructs the very backbone of our perception—our way of categorising the world. Why should you lose yourself in the corridors of this exhibition? Because Mullican confronts us with the immense questions of life and death with the simplicity of a noticeboard. Come, let us embark on an exploration guided by symbols and lines in this intellectual floor of the building.

The Horizon Line Dividing the Space: The Geometry of the Three Worlds

The first thing that greets you upon entering the exhibition space is a single black line running horizontally across the gallery walls, dividing them in two. This line is not merely decorative; it is a fundamental principle organising Mullican’s entire universe—a “horizon line.” While it splits the space into parallel realities, it also instils a sense of direction. Functioning like the building’s main load-bearing column, this line quietly whispers which reality level each work belongs to—above it, below it, or directly on it.

In this selection spanning Mullican’s early works from the 1970s to his recent productions, we follow step by step how an image is transformed into an abstract symbol. Although the primary colours and basic forms he uses initially offer an easily readable alphabet, deeper exploration reveals the complex codes beneath. Here the horizontal line does not serve as a timeline but rather as a silent guide determining distance and movement.

The Cosmology of Five Worlds: From Caviar to Star Maps

While smoke rises in the boiler room, Mullican’s world of symbols is in constant internal transformation. The artist’s famous “Five Worlds” cosmology classifies everything—from his own thoughts to the workings of the universe—through colours and codes. In recent “rubbing” works such as “Untitled (double-sided 1835),” circular diagrams offer a kaleidoscopic intersection. For Mullican, there is no theoretical difference between a top-down view of a coffee cup and a diagram of celestial bodies; both are forms and carriers of information.

Stained-glass works and neon installations—where light acquires an architectural quality—bring this cosmology into the physical realm. Mullican’s noticeboards reconfigure the ordinary format we see in our homes or public spaces using a non-linear logic. Here information is not random; it comes together through associative intelligence. Painting each floor of a steel structure a different colour reminds us of the layered nature of knowledge while demonstrating how permeable and vital Mullican’s system is.

Life, Death, and Everything In Between: The Intersection of Fiction and Reality

At its core, Mullican’s art engages with the ancient questions of human existence: Where were we before birth, and where do we go after death? A text pinned to one of his noticeboards addresses these metaphysical questions as a dialogue between “death and fate.” Photographs and drawings of everyday life from the mid-1970s offer the most intimate and universal view of a person’s surroundings at the same time.

This exhibition proves how deeply intertwined fiction and reality, art and life, can be. From a single line, Mullican constructs this vast picture, connecting points that speak not only to our minds but also to our feelings. This quiet yet profound exhibition on Potsdamer Strasse silently reminds us that ordering the world is actually ordering ourselves. If you are in Berlin during this period, set aside time to become part of this mental map.

Exhibition Information:

Artist: Matt Mullican

Venue: Galerie Thomas Schulte, Potsdamer Strasse 81B, Berlin

Dates: 14 February – 18 April 2026