Andreas Mühe. Mischpoche. (Signierte Ausgabe)

In two large-scale photographic family portraits Mühe brings together living and no longer living members of his family. Working from photographs, he used a complex and laborious production process to have deceased family members replicated as strikingly lifelike sculptures.This reveals a very personal analysis of the interrelationships within the Mühe family, the members of which - because of their work - also lead partially public lives. Behind the psychological, socially-charged aspects of the family portrait, an art-theoretical investigation is also taking place. Indeed, Mühe's artistic process, which proceeds from photographic raw material, through three-dimensional reproduction as sculpture, and leads finally to a choreographed grouping with a photographic family portrait as its end result, makes the ambivalent nature of photography - which lies somewhere between truth and construct - blatantly clear. Personal histories, social and societal circumstances, and artistic tradition come together to create the portrait of a family in which both contemporary history and art history are deeply inscribed.