Christian Philipp Müller: A Bath for Florian

30 September 2023–June 2024

At Domplatz in St. Pölten, the very location where the magistrate’s palace of the Roman city Aelium Cetium stood in the 3rd century AD – more specifically, where its bathhouse once stood – Müller orchestrates a revival of the invisible, the past, and the previously extant, effectively bringing them back into the present.

Müller’s new work explores the spirit not only of Domplatz but of the city as a whole, with a focus on its former Roman magistrate, St. Florian.

The performative sculpture Ein Bad für Florian (A Bath for Florian) consists of a circular stage positioned precisely above the former bathhouse, with a central round cavity reflecting the size of the bathhouse pool. Twelve elements are arranged on the platform, positioned like the numbers on a clock face. Eight of these elements provide seating around the perimeter, inviting visitors to pause and reflect; four obelisks along the inner edge mark the points of the compass, recalling St Pölten’s Roman origins and the fact that the city was arranged on a north-south axis. All these elements are rendered in an opaque, contemporary building material. A notable feature is the obelisk marking the north, which is made of glass and contains a modern, carved sculpture of St. Florian.

On 30 September 2023, a grand opening procession organized by Christian Philipp Müller will herald a new event in the city’s collective historical memory. Tradition and contemporary art will come together as fire brigades, brass bands, and local clubs march together in a celebration of both the city’s rich history and its vibrant present. Furthermore, on 4 May 2024, the feast day of St. Florian, a second prominent parade will act as a central focal point during the first days of the upcoming Tangente St. Pölten festival – for which Ein Bad für Florian (A Bath for Florian) serves as a precursor. Both events will be announced via posters specially designed by Christian Philipp Müller.

At the invitation of Tangente St. Pölten, internationally acclaimed artist Christian Philipp Müller (born 1957 in Biel, Switzerland) has conceived a sculptural intervention for Domplatz. Entitled Ein Bad für Florian (A Bath for Florian), his creation delves into the annals of St. Pölten’s urban history, unearthing hidden elements and connecting the historical with contemporary aesthetics.

Müller is arguably the most compelling figure in the generation of artists who pushed the boundaries of conceptual art into uncharted territory in the 1990s. His artistic methodology encompasses scholarly research, analysis, and a politically inclined, critical mindset. Embarking on journeys through cultural history and everyday life, investigating the social fabric and societal constructs, he arrives at startling conclusions and presents a trove of engaging cross-references in place of tired answers – from yesterday to today and back.

With canonical exhibitions in legendary galleries and renowned museums worldwide, groundbreaking contributions to international art events such as biennials and documenta, and works meticulously tailored for private and public collections, Müller’s body of work intricately weaves together epochs, natural and abstract realms. His striking stagings and interventions have written key chapters in the history of contextual art, a genre that has dominated art history seminars for countless academic semesters.

An almost textbook example is the artist’s A Balancing Act, a work Müller created for the tenth edition of documenta in 1997 in the heart of Kassel, where he would later become rector of the art academy. The work finds him skilfully intertwining such diverse elements as historical traces; public perception and its involvement in the artistic process; sculpture as a mode of action; urban dynamics and their presentation in an exhibition context. He trained with a tightrope walker and then walked a path on a rope suspended just above the ground, tracing with it the line between the iconic, historical works of Joseph Beuys (7000 Oaks) and Walter de Maria (The Vertical Earth Kilometer) on Friedrichsplatz in Kassel. Documentation of the event and a classic artwork – a balance beam made of oak and brass as a tribute to Beuys and de Maria, respectively – featured at Museum Fridericianum.

“Good vibes” abound between the cosmopolitan Müller and Austria. His connection to the country goes beyond exhibitions at influential galleries to include warm relationships with artists, curators, the cultural milieu, and a multitude of allies ranging from gardeners to firefighters. His enthusiasm is contagious. Social networks emerge that would be hard to imagine without his work. Müller has created a number of memorable pieces in Vienna and Lower Austria, among them his living sculpture Die Neue Welt (The New World) on the grounds of Melk Abbey (2006, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Niederösterreich); Drei-Schwestern-Korridor (Three Sisters Corridor, 2017, mumok, in collaboration with the evn collection); and portraits capturing the essence of the country and its people, such as The Family of Austrians (1993, Galerie Metropol) and Eine Welt für sich (1999, Galerie Georg Kargl).

Müller represented Austria at the 1993 Venice Biennale along with Gerwald Rockenschaub and the American artist Andrea Fraser. While it is now commonplace for “foreigner” artists to occupy national pavilions on the Giardini, curator Peter Weibel’s choice was as controversial back then as it was radical and visionary.

The Austrian pavilion was also avant-garde in its artistic approach. Müller’s Grüne Grenze (Green Border) provides an early instance of the artist’s embrace of performance sculpture and performative sculpture as instruments of action and critical analysis. The piece documents the artist entering Austria’s neighbouring countries illegally (mostly on foot) via the green (unmonitored) borders in an evocative exploration of nationalism and emigration. The result showed that the meaning of a work of art is not determined by its material manifestation alone; it has as much or more to do with the work’s social relevance and the interplay between form and passion.

Christian Philipp Müller’s processions and parades, among his most spectacular works, offer insight into the catalysts, foundations, and driving forces behind his conceptual reappraisal of sculpture, as well as his grasp of site-specificity and communication.

In 2008, just outside the gates of the abandoned Manifattura Tabacchi (formerly owned by BAT, a Russian corporation), one of the venues for Manifesta 7 in Rovereto, Trentino, Müller stumbled across an unopened pack of Apollo-Soyuz cigarettes. The specialty brand had been manufactured in the Soviet Union by the American cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris. The pack featured the iconic Apollo-Soyuz mission, a 1975 event in which American and Soviet spacecraft docked together in orbit, allowing astronauts to move freely from one rocket to the other. Müller delved into the political-pacifist signal and history of the tobacco factory. He discovered that the Futurist artist Fortunato Depero had designed a parade float (carro allegorico) for the tobacco factory in 1936 that combined Futurist artistic ideals (in the form of a tank) with the folklore of the local landscape. In direct analogy, Müller’s Carro Largo presents a “space rendezvous” of its own with flatbed lorries conveying choruses of people in traditional, regional dress and a magnificent sculptural representation of docked rockets, which were slowly driven from the city’s central station to the exhibition venue. Müller’s work ingeniously mingles aspects of the historic city and its factory, the legendary space event, and utopian concepts of art and progress into a narrative that is as complex as it is playful.

One of Müller’s most splendid parades unfolded in Styria in 2010, as part of an exhibition organised by the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz for its castle annexe, Schloss Trautenfels. Entitled Burning Love (Lodenfüssler), the exhibition focused on the material and production of loden, the traditional raw wool cloth, as well as the aesthetic form of the alpine folk costume. Müller opted for a blend of Styrian heritage and American Land Art. Using a 50-metre-long piece of white loden cloth, he created an oversized, traditional alpine cape through which 20 people stuck their heads through round holes. On Ascension Day, an important date in the Catholic liturgical calendar, Müller sent his team on a 42 km hike from the loden’s production site to the exhibition at Schloss Trautenfels. A white, “wandering fence” could be seen traversing the Upper Styrian countryside, crossing hills and valleys, stopping at inns and markets along the way. A Minimal Art-style video documents the journey of this flexible formation, a tableau vivant that adapts to the landscape, disappears and reappears

Domplatz is the second largest square in the city centre of St. Pölten It covers an area of approximately 5,700 square metres. Between 2010 and 2019, extensive archaeological investigations were carried out in preparation for its redevelopment, in accordance with the Austrian Monument Protection Act. These efforts were then complemented by more focused, construction-related surveys between 2020 and 2023. The excavations unearthed remarkable and at times astonishing finds from the Roman to early modern periods – discoveries that hold significance not only for the historical narrative of St. Pölten, but also for the whole of Lower Austria. They have also attracted considerable international attention.

Current knowledge suggests that Emperor Hadrian founded the Roman city of Municipium Aelium Cetium near the present city centre shortly after 120 AD. A hallmark of Roman town planning was the systematic street grid, a feature that has survived to some extent in the modern layout of St Pölten. Present-day Domplatz occupies the eastern part of what was once the Roman settlement. Digs in this area have revealed remains of Roman edifices and two internal roads dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The structures were demolished towards the end of the 3rd century to make way for a multi-component architectural complex. Significantly, archaeological excavations in the northern part of Domplatz fully exposed a distinctive circular structure measuring approximately 16.5 x 17 metres. At its core was a circular chamber with a diameter of 5.6 metres. Adjacent to this central section were three chambers in the northern quadrant – rooms with underfloor heating, decorated with semi-circular recesses or apses – as well as further unheated rooms on the west, south and east sides. The latter were enclosed by an additional concentric wall structure.

Evidence that the building was a bathhouse is provided by its location, the heated rooms (some of which have apses), remains of a drainage system and the inclusion of brick chippings in the mortar mix. Roman bathhouses followed a consistent layout: an unheated, cold bathing chamber, a room at a moderate temperature, a heated bathing chamber, and finally (though not always) a steam room. The temperature was probably like that of a Turkish hammam, and the bathing ritual was also similar.

Some 9 metres south-east of the bath house, excavations revealed parts of a rectangular hall with a semicircular (apsidal) termination on the north side. Further chambers were connected to the west. In its first phase of construction, the hall had an internal width of 8.9 metres, although the north-south dimensions remain unknown. The hall and apse were considerably enlarged during a later phase of construction, resulting in a spacious area measuring approximately 18 by 12 metres. This type of hall, known as an aula, was mainly used for purposes of representation.

Excavations in the southern part of Domplatz revealed the remains of a building that differed significantly in construction, dimensions, and interior layout from the (residential) buildings previously excavated in Aelium Cetium. Apparently, this building comprised a section with no less than nine contiguous chambers. These rooms were extensively equipped with underfloor heating, one of which terminated in an apse at the western end. It is likely that a lightweight-design hall was constructed on the east side. A 1914 photograph in the Stadtmuseum showing the excavation pit prior to the construction of the building at Herrenplatz 14 suggests that a similar structural tract may have existed to the west.

All the structures mentioned were part of a complex of at least 5,300 square metres, built no earlier than the late 3rd century AD. Uniquely designed bathhouses and aulae were mainly found in large villas, palatial estates and imperial residences. This particular architectural ensemble can be classified as an administrative complex, more precisely as the residence of the civil governor of the province of Noricum ripense (as opposed to the province of Noricum, which was divided up in the course of imperial reforms led by Emperor Diocletian). The spacious hall, like the bathhouse, where guests were received, was built to impress. Aelium Cetium entered a period of prosperity from the late 3rd century, as evidenced by renovations and new buildings in the area of the present Rathausplatz and other parts of the city. Interestingly, it was at this time that St. Florian, a retired officer in the Roman army, is said to have set out from Aelium Cetium to Lauriacum (now Enns) to assist Christians who were being persecuted under Diocletian.

Nonetheless, Aelium Cetium seems to have been abandoned by the end of the 5th century. It wasn’t until a monastery was founded after 800 – by the brothers Adalbert and Ottokar, according to legend – that the once-ruined Roman city began to see a resurgence in population. Excavations have revealed not only the remains of the medieval monastery, but also a round church built in the 9th century using the walls of the bathhouse, one of the oldest in Lower Austria. That same century saw the founding of a cemetery. And so Domplatz provided the first evidence of the emerging medieval town. Around 1100, the monastery church – where the cathedral now stands – was replaced by a new building and opened to the public. The southern section saw the development of a two-storey chapel, the lower floor of which was used as an ossuary while the upper floor served as a baptistery. Both sacral structures were enlarged during the Middle Ages.

Surrounding the churches was the city cemetery, which was founded in the 9th century and initially covered the entire area of the current square, extending partially under the current buildings. The remains of 22,380 individuals buried there have been unearthed, meticulously documented and anthropologically studied. The findings place St. Pölten in a unique position in Europe, if not the world, and provide an invaluable bio-archive for research across disciplines.

The parish church was razed between 1690 and 1692, the cemetery was closed in 1779, the two-storey chapel was abandoned in 1784, and so the original ecclesiastical centre was eventually transformed into a square that was levelled throughout the 19th century. It was also towards the end of the 19th century that the market was moved from Rathausplatz to this location.