Nicholas Muellner

{{Short description|American photographer, writer and curator}} {{Infobox artist | name = Nicholas Muellner | image =  | caption = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1969}}<ref name="guardian">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/feb/16/photography-nicholas-muellner-best-shot |title=Photographer Nicholas Muellner's best shot |last=Pulver |first=Andrew |date=February 16, 2011 |access-date=February 25, 2018 |newspaper=The Guardian |archive-date=February 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180225142301/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/feb/16/photography-nicholas-muellner-best-shot |url-status=live}}</ref> | birth_place = Washington, D.C.<ref name="guardian" /> | alma_mater = Temple University (MFA)<ref name="arcadia" /> <br> Yale University (BA)<ref name="arcadia" /> | known_for = Photography, writing | notable_works = ''The Amnesia Pavilions'' <br> ''In Most Tides an Island'' | style = | movement = | awards =  | website = {{URL|nicholasmuellner.com}} }}

'''Nicholas Muellner''' (born 1969)<ref name="guardian" /> is an American photographer, writer and curator. He is best known for his photobooks ''The Amnesia Pavilions'' and ''In Most Tides an Island''. ''The Amnesia Pavilions'' was named one of ''Time'' magazine's best photobooks of 2011, and ''In Most Tides an Island'' was shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation's PhotoBook of the Year award in 2017.<ref name="time" /><ref name="bjp" /> His works often combine images with text; treat themes related to repressed intimacy and human connection; and contain elements of autobiography, abstraction, photojournalism, and fiction.<ref name="ap2" /><ref name="spbh" /> Many are set in the former Soviet Union and take gay men as their visual subjects.<ref name="arcadia" /><ref name="ap2" /><ref name="ap1" />

==Early life and education== {{Quote box |quoted=true |bgcolor=# |quote= [I]n that odd summer, in which history lurched forward and back, like a train stopping abruptly in the wilderness at night{{nbsp}}... change was measurable in people's willingness to describe their business plans and dreams of travel, their extortion rackets and erotic fantasies, to a young American with a camera. |salign= right |source= –Muellner, describing his 1990 trip to the Soviet Union in ''The Amnesia Pavilions''<ref name="ccc" />|align= right|width=33%}}

Muellner was born in Washington, D.C., in 1969.<ref name="guardian" /> He received his BA in comparative literature from Yale University and his MFA in photography from Tyler School of Art, Temple University.<ref name="arcadia" /><ref name="ic" /> Muellner speaks Russian, and during his undergraduate studies in 1990, he received a student travel grant to visit the Soviet Union and photograph his rail journey from Moscow to Khabarovsk.<ref name="ccc" /> While in Ulan-Ude, he befriended and fell in love with a young man named Aleksei Tsvetkov; they eventually lost touch.<ref name="ap1" /><ref name="ccc" /> His 2009 return to Russia in search of Tsvetkov would later shape ''The Amnesia Pavilions''.<ref name="ap2" /><ref name="ap1" />

==Career==

===Early career===

In 2000, Muellner collaborated with programmer and artist Richard Harrod on ''The Evolution of Closed Systems and Other Propagandas''. The project was an interactive version of ''Pong'' adapted to include quotations from Mao Zedong, tips for effective salesmanship, and commentary by Muellner and Harrod on intimacy and personal relationships. It was designed as a metaphor for human–state interaction.<ref name="gs">{{cite web |url=http://www.gamescenes.org/2011/09/game-art-richard-harrod-nick-muellners-the-evolution-of-closed-systems-and-other-propagandas-2000.html |title=Game Art: Richard Harrod & Nick Muellner's 'The Evolution of Closed Systems and Other Propagandas' (2000) |date=September 24, 2011 |last=Bittanti |first=Matteo |website=Gamescenes |access-date=February 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108035208/http://www.gamescenes.org/2011/09/game-art-richard-harrod-nick-muellners-the-evolution-of-closed-systems-and-other-propagandas-2000.html |archive-date=November 8, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Since 2002, Muellner has been a professor of media arts, sciences, and studies at the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.<ref name="arcadia" /><ref name="ic">{{cite web |url=https://faculty.ithaca.edu/nmuellner/ |title=Nicholas Muellner |website=faculty.ithaca.edu |publisher=Ithaca College |access-date=February 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171216201113/https://faculty.ithaca.edu/nmuellner/ |archive-date=December 16, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> He is co-director of the college's image–text MFA program.<ref name="chron">{{cite news |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/transitions-a-former-lt-governor-accepts-a-new-higher-education-role-guggenheim-fellows-are-named/ |title=Transitions: A Former Lt. Governor Accepts a New Higher-Education Role, Guggenheim Fellows Are Named |last=Piper |first=Julia |date=April 20, 2018 |newspaper=The Chronicle of Higher Education |access-date=August 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812213601/https://www.chronicle.com/article/transitions-a-former-lt-governor-accepts-a-new-higher-education-role-guggenheim-fellows-are-named/ |archive-date=August 12, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2009, Muellner published a book titled ''The Photograph Commands Indifference''.<ref name="cepa" />

===From ''The Amnesia Pavilions'' to ''In Most Tides an Island''===

In 2011, Muellner published ''The Amnesia Pavilions'', a photobook chronicling his 1990 and 1992 trips to present-day Russia and his return to Ulan-Ude to look for Tsvetkov in 2009.<ref name="ap1">{{cite news |url=https://aperture.org/pbr/photobook-lust-justine-kurland-nicholas-muellner-amnesia-pavilions/ |title=PhotoBook Lust: Justine Kurland on Nicholas Muellner, ''The Amnesia Pavilions'' |last=Kurland |first=Justine |access-date=February 25, 2018 |magazine=Aperture |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170719061823/https://aperture.org/pbr/photobook-lust-justine-kurland-nicholas-muellner-amnesia-pavilions/ |archive-date=July 19, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> ''Time'' magazine named it one of the best photobooks of 2011.<ref name="time">{{cite magazine |author=TIME Photo Department |date=December 29, 2011 |title=TIME's Best of 2011: The Photobooks We Loved |url=https://time.com/3784463/the-photo-books-we-loved-in-2011-2/ |magazine= Time |access-date=February 25, 2018 |at=Slides 43–44}}</ref> Muellner adapted ''The Amnesia Pavilions'' to a multimedia format for ''Triple Canopy''.<ref name="ccc">{{cite web |url=https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/amnesia_pavilions |website=Triple Canopy |title=Amnesia Pavilions |last=Muellner |first=Nicholas |date=2011 |access-date=February 25, 2018}}</ref>

In 2013, he created a photographic body of work called ''The Nautiloid Heart'', which was exhibited at Noshowspace in London and at the CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, New York.<ref name="ap2" /><ref name="cepa">{{cite web |url=http://www.cepagallery.org/portfolio/nick-muellner-the-nautiloid-heart/ |title=Nicholas Muellner: The Nautiloid Heart |work=cepagallery.org |publisher=CEPA Gallery |access-date=February 25, 2018}}</ref><ref name="nos">{{cite web |url=http://www.noshowspace.com/projects/nautiloid-heart |title=Nicholas Muellner, ''The Nautiloid Heart'' |website=noshowspace.com |publisher=Noshowspace |access-date=February 25, 2018 |archive-date=January 10, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140110154838/http://www.noshowspace.com/projects/nautiloid-heart |url-status=live}}</ref> While in the Caribbean photographing for ''The Nautiloid Heart'', Muellner began to correspond with closeted gay men in Russia and Ukraine, including several in Crimea, shortly before the Russian annexation of that region.<ref name="ap2" /><ref name="spbh" /> In an interview with ''Aperture'' magazine, Muellner explained how this gave rise to the concept that would become ''In Most Tides an Island'':

{{Quote box| |quoted=true |bgcolor= |quote=In my unfinished island fiction, I had attributed a dream of my own—almost unaltered—to the primary character, in the form of a bedtime story: the vision of an 'almost-island' where beautiful men nurtured and murdered narrative. I suspected that the Crimean Peninsula was that almost-island, and that I needed to find those men.<ref name="ap2" /> |align= center |width= 50%}}

Muellner traveled to Russia and Ukraine to interview and photograph the men, and he published their stories in ''In Most Tides an Island'' in 2017.<ref name="spbh" /> The book reports on the isolation, secrecy, and repression that shape the men's lives. It juxtaposes this content with images from ''The Nautiloid Heart'', which are repurposed as a narrative about a woman alone on a Caribbean island.<ref name="ap2">{{cite news |url=https://aperture.org/blog/muellner-tides-island/ |last=Bell |first=Adam |title=All That Paradise Allows |date=July 18, 2017 |magazine=Aperture |access-date=February 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170724092406/http://aperture.org/blog/muellner-tides-island/ |archive-date=July 24, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="spbh" /><ref name="1000w">{{cite web |url=http://www.1000wordsmag.com/nicholas-muellner/ |title=Nicholas Muellner, ''In Most Tides an Island'' |last=Abel-Hirsch |first=Hannah |access-date=February 26, 2018 |work=1000 Words Photography Magazine |archive-date=August 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813022056/http://www.1000wordsmag.com/nicholas-muellner/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Muellner connects the two worlds with the theme of solitude, and the work also includes commentary on the internet as a means of indulgence and temporary escape from loneliness.<ref name="1000w" /> ''In Most Tides an Island'' was shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation's 2017 PhotoBook of the Year award.<ref name="bjp">{{cite news |url=http://www.bjp-online.com/2017/11/the-2017-paris-photo-aperture-foundation-photobook-award-winners/ |title=The 2017 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Award winners |date=November 10, 2017 |last=Smyth |first=Diane |access-date=February 25, 2018 |magazine=British Journal of Photography |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171228224137/http://www.bjp-online.com/2017/11/the-2017-paris-photo-aperture-foundation-photobook-award-winners/ |archive-date=December 28, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> The same year, The San Francisco Foundation awarded Muellner the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship.<ref name = "jg">{{cite web |url=https://sff.org/programs/awards-programs/art-awards/john-gutmann-photography-fellowship/ |title=John Gutmann Photography Fellowship |website=sff.org |publisher=The San Francisco Foundation |access-date=February 9, 2019 |url-status=live |archive-date=February 9, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190209173659/https://sff.org/programs/awards-programs/art-awards/john-gutmann-photography-fellowship/}}</ref>

===Talks and exhibitions===

Muellner has had solo exhibitions in the US, the UK, and Russia.<ref name="cepa" /> Among other locations, his work has been shown at ClampArt and at the Stark Gallery in New York City, as well as at Locks Gallery and at Project Room in Philadelphia.<ref name="arcadia">{{cite web |url=https://gargoyle.arcadia.edu/gallery/archives/moscow-plastic-arts.htm |title=Moscow Plastic Arts |date=November 10, 2006 |access-date=February 25, 2018 |website=gargoyle.arcadia.edu |publisher=Arcadia University Art Gallery |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121108202011/https://gargoyle.arcadia.edu/gallery/archives/moscow-plastic-arts.htm |archive-date=November 8, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> He has given readings at MoMA PS1, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.<ref name="cepa" />

===Affiliations===

Since 2018, Muellner has been a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.<ref name="jsg">{{cite web |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/nicholas-muellner/ |title=Nicholas Muellner |website=gf.org |publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=February 9, 2019 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180504222407/https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/nicholas-muellner/ |archive-date=May 4, 2018}}</ref>

==Influences== Muellner cites James Agee and Walker Evans' ''Let Us Now Praise Famous Men'', as well as the work of Ralph Gibson and Ralph Eugene Meatyard, as inspiration for his use of image–text relationships to tell stories.<ref name="spbh" /> One of his earliest influences to this end was Duane Michals, whose books he said "seduced [him] not only with their mystical-whimsical narratives of word-image interplay, but with their spiritually gauzed-over homoeroticism."<ref name="spbh">{{cite web |url=http://selfpublishbehappy.com/2017/06/interview-nicholas-muellner-on-the-newest-book-from-spbh-editions/ |title=Interview: Nicholas Muellner on the newest book from SPBH Editions |work=SPBH Editions |publisher=Self Publish, Be Happy |access-date=March 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180303135218/http://selfpublishbehappy.com/2017/06/interview-nicholas-muellner-on-the-newest-book-from-spbh-editions/ |archive-date=March 3, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Muellner's photographic style is influenced by 1950s New York street photography, 19th-century landscape paintings, and 1990s German conceptual photography.<ref name="guardian" /> When he was 19, he discovered Nan Goldin's ''The Ballad of Sexual Dependency''.<ref name="ap2" /> Of this body of photographs, he said, "Looking compulsively at [it] ... electrified me. I was so gripped by that expression of erotic, frank, immediate visual intimacy. But I also learned, eventually, that I was nothing like that. My version of the personal, of processing intimacy, includes the awareness of doubts, paradoxes, and distancing effects."<ref name="ap2" />

==Selected works== {{refbegin}} * {{cite book |last=Muellner |first=Nicholas |date=2019 |title=Lacuna Park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography |location=London |publisher=SPBH Editions |isbn=978-1999814489}} * {{cite book |last=Muellner |first= Nicholas |date=2017 |title=In Most Tides an Island |location=London |publisher=SPBH Editions |isbn=978-1999814427}} * {{cite book |last1=Keene |first1=John |author1-link=John Keene (writer) |last2=Muellner |first2=Nicholas |date=2016 |title=Grind |location=Ithaca |publisher=ITI Press |isbn=978-0996735124}} * {{cite book |last=Muellner |first=Nicholas |date=2011 |title=The Amnesia Pavilions |location=Ithaca |publisher=A-Jump Books |isbn=978-0977765584 }} * {{cite book |last=Muellner |first=Nicholas |date=2009 |title=The Photograph Commands Indifference |location=Ithaca |publisher=A-Jump Books |isbn=978-0977765539}} * {{cite book |editor1-last=Crane |editor1-first=Cathy |editor1-link=Cathy Lee Crane |editor2-last=Muellner |editor2-first=Nicholas |date=2008 |title=(1968) |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn= 978-1847186416}} * {{cite book |last=Muellner |first=Nicholas |date=2005 |title=Moscow Plastic Arts |publisher=Arcadia University Art Gallery |isbn=978-0976215400}} {{refend}}

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links== *[http://nicholasmuellner.com/ Official website] *Muellner, Nicholas (2011). [https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/amnesia_pavilions "Amnesia Pavilions"], a multimedia adaptation of Muellner's 2011 photobook of the same name. *Muellner, Nicholas (2017). [https://vimeo.com/219088544 ''In Most Tides an Island''], a video walk-through of the book on Vimeo.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muellner, Nick}} Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:Photographers from Washington, D.C. Category:Yale University alumni Category:Temple University Tyler School of Art alumni Category:Ithaca College faculty