Thomas Schutte. This item is unavailable.Thomas Schutte

This new catalogue documents a current exhibition of works by German artist Thomas Schütte at the Goetz Collection in Munich, and features over 60 full-color reproductions of his work. Schütte's work in various media, including sculpture and installation, has gained increasing recognition stateside over the past few years after impressing audiences and critics in Europe. In addition to Schütte's works, there are several illuminating essays on the artist's oeuvre: Cay Sophie Rabinowitch focuses on Schütte's work from the past five years, particularly his large-scale sculptures of nude women; Jan Avgikos discusses the reception of Schütte's work in the United States; Robert Fleck places Schütte's work in the context of contemporary European art; and Rainald Schumacher documents the exhibition history of the works presented in the catalogue, and explores their connection to other works by Schütte.

Thomas Schütte is a catalog of works by this contemporary German artist. Schütte studied under Gerhard Richter, Benjamin Buchloh, and Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Academy in the 1970s. He comes from that strong conceptual background, but as his career matured the emotional content of his work evolved and became much more potent. Schütte's work is incredibly eclectic: ceramic figures, architectural models, drawings, outdoor sculptures, photographs, and installations. A recent work, Big Spirits (1996), is a collection of larger-than-life-size aluminum figures that seem to be morphing before one's eyes. They are at once ghost, human, and machine. Also riveting is The Innocents (1994), a series of photographs of the heads of handmade figurines, and United Enemies, A Play in Ten Scenes (1993)--offset lithographs, also of figurines wrapped in Schütte's clothes. His watercolors are beautiful, ranging from drawings of fruit to portraits of women. Whatever the project, Schütte is tapped in to a particular humanity.

Included in the book are essays by Julian Heynen and Angela Vettese, an interview with James Lingwood, and an essay by Roman philosopher Seneca, chosen by the artist. There is also a story by Schütte--printed in English for the first time. --Jennifer Cohen