Angry about world events
Armin Mueller-Stahl never tires of emphasizing that he “had to live through the Second World War and was allowed to survive it.” It is this existential experience of death, violence, pain and fear, but also solidarity, love and hope, that has had a profound impact on him as a person.
With great empathy, but also anger and indignation, he devotes himself in his painting to the excessive violence of our present day. He creates dignified and, at the same time, cautionary images of remembrance, such as the painting Erschossen in Tehran – Neda (Shot in Tehran—Neda) (2009), created in honor of the Iranian student Neda Agha-Soltan (1982–2009), who was murdered by militias. But images full of bewilderment also emerge when one reads the text of the painting Die Nazis und der Nahe Osten… (The Nazis and the Middle East...) (2015).
“Things that you can't really paint suddenly become an image,” Mueller-Stahl once said. This also applies to his large-format work Allegro furioso (Munich New York), on which he has inscribed the names of cities where terrible terrorist attacks have been carried out on the civilian population in recent decades: Kabul, London, Manila, Munich, New York, Nice, Paris.