Thomas Schütte

Although some of the works in Thomas Schütte’s current show date back as far as the early ’80s, most were made in the last six years, and together they provide a nuanced sense of what Germany’s most important sculptor has been up to lately. Prints and watercolors circle the walls of galleries filled with ceramics and architectural models. On K21’s top floor, under a soaring glass roof, Schütte exhibits his reclining nudes made of rusty steel and his magnificently mutating, larger-than-life aluminium figures. The artist delights in taking social taboos, like sexist stereotypes, and serving them up in humorous guises. He also tackles sculptural methods and materials that have been frowned on since the days of Ernst Barlach or that, like ceramics, have come to be seen as suspiciously craftsy. Full of allusions and precise observations, Schütte’s work distorts historical and contemporary conventions. Perhaps not incidentally, the title of this exhibition is “Kreuzzug” (Crusade).

Translated from German by Emily Speers Mears.