Cass Fine Art: Lecture by Marlie Mul News from the School of Art, Architecture and Design

"Second Hand Smoke", a lecture by the artist Marlie Mul.

Date: 19/02/2015

Marlie Mul’s sculptures often simulate everyday outdoor objects that refer to human interaction: air vents used as ashtrays, heaps of snow arranged with cigarette butts or gritty rain puddles littered with generic bits of trash. With cigarette butts and litter depicting traces of human behaviours, the situations presented in these works suggest an invisible presence of a virtual population or crowd.

For her talk at The Cass, Marlie Mul will focus on the topic of (tobacco) smoking to offer an insight into some of the ideas that form her artistic practice. Smoking can here be seen as a tool to examine the seemingly obvious, to ask which societal decisions lie behind the familiar habit, and how human behaviour is shaped by such decisions?

Marlie Mul’s solo exhibitions are Arbeidsvitaminen (2015) currently at Vilma Gold, London; Boneless Banquet For One (2013), Croy Nielsen, Berlin; So We Came Anyway, In Barrels (2013), Fluxia, Milan; No Oduur (Stop Being So Attractive I Can’t Get Anything Done) (2012), Autocenter, Berlin; No Oduur (Your Smoke Draws Me In) (2012), Oslo10, Basel; No Oduur (2012), Space, London.

Her recent group exhibitions include To the End of the Line (2014), and Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles; The Great Acceleration (2014), Taipei Biennial, Taipei; Puddle, Pothole, Portal (2014), Sculpture Center, New York; Nature After Nature (2014), Fridericianium, Kassel and Geographies of Contamination (2014), DRAF, London.