The Secret Life of Things and Marketed Memory: “Boutique Société × Treasures of Memory 2” by Kaspar Müller at Société Berlin

Are the objects that surround us in daily life, that we constantly consume, or whose presence we take for granted because they stand right in front of our eyes, really as “familiar” as we think? Or has each of them turned into a silent hieroglyph of the desires we load onto them, the social memory shaped by those desires, and capitalist production systems? Swiss artist Kaspar Müller invites the audience to seek answers to precisely these questions with his solo exhibition “Boutique Société × Treasures of Memory 2” taking place at the famous gallery Société in Berlin.

Re-orchestrating ordinary objects within playful and provocative constellations, Müller makes visible that tense space between the social lives of objects and their internal inaccessibility (opacity).

The Sacred Sanctuary of Objects: The Journey of Things from the “Vault” to the “Boutique”

Kaspar Müller’s practice deals with the distance between the sensory surface of the object—that shiny area where meaning, value, and aesthetic desire accumulate—and its inaccessible dimensions that, in the words of philosopher Graham Harman, “echo in vaults of being untouched by any relation.” In this exhibition, Müller brings those mysterious objects hiding in the vault directly into the gallery, or rather, into a “boutique” atmosphere.

Two aluminum-framed tents set up at the center of the gallery instantly transform the atmosphere of the space. Appearing in every area of life from street markets to birthdays, fairs to official receptions, these temporary and portable structures transform in Müller’s hands into makeshift architectural costumes by donning transparent fabrics hand-painted with cheerful polka dots and stripes. While lamp sculptures located inside the tents radiate the warm light of showrooms into the space, they mirror industrial production and present-day aesthetic tastes through rich and mismatched bulb combinations that manufacture the new by transforming the old.

Slowly Rotating BONGS, Aluminum Tulip Mania, and Artificial Intelligence Memory

The exhibition progresses along an uncanny and humorous route at the intersection of handmade and mass production, classic iconography and contemporary consumption objects:

• BONGS on a Rotating Platform: Displayed on a slowly rotating pedestal, hand-blown glass bongs carry the contradiction between the uniqueness in their making process and the ordinariness of their fields of use. In Müller’s words, these stand on stage as “tools for altering a mind state.”

• Reference to 17th-Century Tulip Mania: Cast aluminum tulips placed atop paint-splattered miniature chairs directly refer both to the history of classic flower paintings and the artist’s studio, as well as to “Tulip Mania” in 17th-century Holland, the first massive bubble in financial history.

• Personal Memories Re-imagined with AI: Müller’s canvases, like the objects, question personal anecdotes and memory. The artist’s memories of the neighborhood of his childhood, stolen cigarettes, and his father’s second-hand bookstore were fed into an artificial intelligence image generator. The resulting images oscillate at an emotional frequency that is generic yet strangely familiar; intimate enough to pierce, yet impersonal enough to alienate.

About the Artist: Who is Kaspar Müller?

Born in Schaffhausen in 1983 and living in Basel, Kaspar Müller is one of the most original, ironic, and conceptually strong representatives of the Swiss contemporary art scene. Freely moving between disciplines such as sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and video in his productions, Müller addresses art-making processes, the relationship between craft and mass production, and the traces of the capitalist economy on individual memory through dark humor and nuanced questioning.

Having previously held solo exhibitions at institutions such as Kunsthalle Zürich, Kunsthalle Bern, Vleeshal (Middelburg), and Atelier Amden, the artist has undertaken major projects in international venues such as Fondazione Prada (Venice), MAMCO (Geneva), Swiss Institute (New York), and Art Basel Parcours. Müller’s works are included in prestigious corporate collections such as the Hermès Collection, Credit Suisse Collection, Pictet Collection, and MAMCO.

It can be viewed until 29 August 2026.