Thomas Schutte

Bundeskunsthalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn

Big Buildings - Models and Views. Over the course of the last thirty years Schutte has reclaimed for contemporary creative practice classic forms of artistic expression, which the avant-garde of the 1960s and 70s had high-handedly dismissed as folkloric and kitsch, and reaffirmed their social and aesthetic relevance. Working with his hands - drawing, painting in watercolours, modelling in clay or plasticine, constructing in wood and other materials - is at the heart of his creative practice. Parallel: Echoraum - Small Things, presents current media art.

comunicato stampa

Curator Rainald Schumacher

A three-times exhibitor at the documenta in Kassel and winner of the prestigious Golden Lion for best individual artist at the Venice Biennale of 2005, Dusseldorf-based artist Thomas Schütte (b. 1954) is internationally acclaimed as one of the most significant German artists.

Over the course of the last thirty years Thomas Schütte has reclaimed for contemporary creative practice classic forms of artistic expression, which the avant-garde of the 1960s and 70s had high-handedly dismissed as folkloric and kitsch, and reaffirmed their social and aesthetic relevance. Working with his hands – drawing, painting in watercolours, modelling in clay or plasticine, constructing in wood and other materials – is at the heart of his creative practice.

The artist has been working with architectural models and sketches since the early 1980s, and the playful investigation of small and big, model and execution, art as a model and the model as art permeates his entire oeuvre, most palpably so in his group of architectural sculptures, which are the focus of this exhibition.

Driving Schütte’s intense engagement with the art of building and the built environment, with light and space is nothing less than the ambition to reclaim architecture for artistic creativity. Bringing together masterpieces that combine critical comment and aesthetic brilliance with poetry and humour, the exhibition makes it clear that the artist is offering a positive alternative as well as harsh criticism. In addition to the small-scale models of the last three decades, this exhibition will – for the first time – present full-scale walk-in realisations of some of his designs, among them a Holiday Home for Terrorists and a One Man House. A selection of recently completed new sculptures complements the architectural works.

ECHORAUM (Echo Chamber)
Small Things
15 July – 17 October 2010

ECHORAUM is a series of two-year co-operations between the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany and a number of international Media Colleges. Students and graduates of the media colleges present their current projects in the lower ground floor galleries which become a temporary experimental laboratory.

Parallel to the opening of the Thomas Schütte exhibition, the exhibition Small Things opens at the Art and Exhibition Hall. It is the second exhibition in the series of co-operations with the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and -1/Minus Eins and
presents current media art.

The works shown in the exhibition Small Things fall into three principal categories:
- Works that address the Art and Exhibition Hall and its space,
- Works that focus on personal, autobiographical motifs,
- Works that address the perception or nature of media art.

Thus Ralf Witthaus's lawnmower drawing on the roof of the Art and Exhibition Hall raises questions about the relationship between quality and visitor numbers. Carolina Redondo's Self Mountain Training for a Substructure and Allan Gretzki's Barcode, which simply spells "Allan Gretzki" lay claim to the space provided by the Art and Exhibition Hall. The works by Daniela Risch and Roshanak Zangeneh scrutinise political symbols and events such as the changing meaning of the kaffiyeh (Palestinian scarf) or the reunification of Germany from the artists' highly personal perspective. Ira Decker, Lukas Marxt, Kiseong Kim and Timo Seber, whose works not only investigate the concept of sculpture and material but also the perception of the viewer, demonstrate the enormous range and breadth of contemporary media art.

Image: Thomas Schutte, Hund II, 2004, glazed ceramic
Photo: Nic Tenwiggenhorn, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010

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