Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte has not been seen as one of the most important contemporary German artists only since 2005, when he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale; rather, with his multi-layered oeuvre he has enjoyed the greatest international interest ever since completing his studies in Gerhard Richter’s class at the Düsseldorf academy. That may be due to his surprising way of using, deploying and combining the various media of sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, watercolour and even etching, but it could also have to do with his artistic outlook. Thus he says in an interview about flower motifs in watercolour: “Painting flowers – that is something one has to have done! It gives such pleasure. Above all it is a pleasure when you are alone with it, it is like a guitar solo. Mother is delighted, the children are delighted, everyone is delighted. You can even write something on it, such as Kapitulation. Who is capitulating now? The flower, or me, or me before the flower, or me before the drawing? These are really exciting questions one asks oneself. After three hours you have fifteen watercolours lying there, and once again you have not spewed your guts out but drawn them out. Flowers are totally rewarding, because they always tell you something. Through the flower you can still say a great deal. Mostly they are love songs. It has a song structure, because it lasts exactly three minutes. That is not unimportant. It has to be fresh, and it has to come across.”

Exhibitions:
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 11/3–30/4/2006
De Pont Stichting voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Tilburg, 20/5–10/9/2006
Neues Museum Nürnberg, 20/10/2006–21/1/2007