Record Pavilion 2.0, 2022-2026 (ongoing)
Installation at Anthony Meier Gallery, 2024
A functioning record store will open inside ArtCenter College of Design’s Williamson Gallery on March 14, anchoring a solo exhibition of more than two decades of work by Los Angeles-based artist Dave Muller.
The exhibition, “Dave Muller: Proto Typical,” presents watercolors, drawings, temporary murals and installations rooted in Muller’s lifelong fascination with music — album covers, vinyl records, cassettes, bootlegs, set lists, price tags and instruments, all rendered by hand. A centerpiece is Record Pavilion 2.0, a fully operational record store stocked with vinyl from Muller’s personal collection that visitors can browse and purchase throughout the show’s run, which extends through August 8, according to a press release from ArtCenter. Admission is free.
The exhibition marks what ArtCenter describes in its press release as Muller’s first non-profit solo presentation in Los Angeles in over 20 years. Muller will also debut a new work based on the college’s orange dot logo, a reference to his own history with the institution, the press release said.
Pasadena audiences will get an early look. A sneak peek of the exhibition will be part of ArtNight Pasadena on Friday, March 13, the citywide arts event that takes place twice a year. The opening reception with the artist is Saturday, March 14, from 5 to 7 p.m., preceded by an exhibition walk-through from 4 to 5 p.m.
Record Pavilion 2.0, first shown in Los Angeles at Blum & Poe gallery in 2022, has traveled to exhibitions in Mill Valley, California. The installation includes construction materials, Formica, lamps, a disco ball, a record player, stereo and records spanning eras and genres, according to gallery records from Anthony Meier Fine Arts, where the piece was shown in late 2024. The records are priced for sale.
Muller, born in 1964 in San Francisco, earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and art from the University of California at Davis and a master of fine arts from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia in 1993, according to ArtCenter’s press release. He also served as a DJ and music director at KDVS, the UC Davis campus radio station. He briefly studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Central to Muller’s career was Three Day Weekend, a series of nomadic social art events held over holiday weekends that he began organizing in the 1990s. Starting in Los Angeles, the events expanded to cities including Tokyo, Berlin, Vienna, London and Houston. In a May 2001 Artforum feature, critic Ralph Rugoff wrote that Muller’s project raised questions about the relationship between artmaking and generosity, describing his work as engaged with the ways artistic identity is shaped by the culture of publicity, according to the magazine.
Muller’s work has been shown at institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León in Spain, according to ArtCenter’s press release. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Dallas Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Canada. He was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
The Williamson Gallery is at ArtCenter’s Hillside Campus, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.
During previous installations of Record Pavilion 2.0 in Los Angeles and Mill Valley, Muller restocked the record store’s inventory throughout each show’s run, according to gallery records.
