Thomas Schütte

Sculpture’s past and present meet up in the works of Thomas Schütte. With his study of the human body, the artist takes an inquiring and persevering approach to a discipline that is frequently considered obsolete today. His humorous motifs that look seriously at the human condition, find their form in expressive physiognomies and typologies. He modulates these repeatedly, testing a wide variety of materials, scales and dimensions. The results are extensive series of works that breathe fresh life into figurative sculpture and update its classic subjects in the context of contemporary issues.

In addition to detailed explanations of the workseries shown in the exebition, the catalog contains essays on Thomas Schütte’s work process and the Sketch-like Quality of his Formal Language (Dörr), the modes of representation of femininity exemplified by his work series „Women“ (Walther), as well as a contextualization of his sculptures in the history of the free standing statue (Reuter) and an analysis of the relationship between sculpture and architecture in Schütte’s oeuvre (Heymer).