19 November 2021–22 February 2022
In Thomas Schütte's sculptures, the past and present of sculpture meet. With his intensive examination of the human body, the internationally active artist encounters a discipline that is now often perceived as obsolete with an inquiring eye and great persistence. His humorous and at the same time deeply aimed at the human condition find their form in idiosyncratic physiognomies and typologies. He modulates these again and again, testing a wide variety of materials, scales and dimensions. The result is extensive, elaborate series of works that breathe new life into the figurative sculpture and demonstrate its current purpose.
The exhibition in the Georg Kolbe Museum includes around 35 sculptures and numerous works on paper - including works that were not created until 2021. These are supplemented by a selection of conceptual-architectural models with which the artist has been taking up the revolutionary spatial principles of modernity for many years. Whether organic-figurative or spatial and abstract, all of Schütte's works can be read as an invitation to recognize the complexity of cultural-historical dynamics, discourses and modes of representation. With multi-layered, historically conscious representations that are equally radically and sensitively differentiated, Thomas Schütte addresses issues that are closely linked to the research work of the Georg Kolbe Museum. And last but not least, it is the direct reference to Kolbe's former context of activity, today's museum and former sculptor's studio, which makes his work tangible in a completely new way.
