The Sober Show Milen Till

Intoxication to foster creativity, or abstinence as the starting point for artistic work?
The history of art seems almost invariably saturated in alcohol, as well as other stimulants and addictive substances. Is an artist always dependent on this fuel; is the ubiquity of intoxicants the indispensable lubricant of the art world?
Part of good shock therapy is a ruthless confrontation with the problem: the addiction and the substance. No exhibition opening is without alcohol and drugs.
Milen Till turns the tables on this in his SOBER SHOW.
He starts with an experiment on himself: can I work as an anonymous teetotaler? Or only as a wellknown alcoholic? The “substance” becomes a substance in the truest sense of the word. Instead of ingesting it, he uses it in his installations, objects, collages, and sketches.
As in his earlier works, Milen Till also uses names and quotations from recent art history. The bar installation is reminiscent of Stätten des Drogenkonsums in der Kölner Südstadt (Sites of Drug Use in Cologne’s Südstadt) from the 1981 exhibition Rausch und Realität (Intoxication and Reality), and is an homage to Daniel Spoerri.

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