The work of Michael Buthe is inseparably connected to Africa and the Middle East. In the course of his many trips to these parts of the world, their cultures—especially those of North Africa—have become very much a part of Buthe’s life. After Cologne, Marrakesh is his second home. From these various influences he creates a milieu of private signs and ciphers in his fetishlike objects and large-scale environments, which can serve simultaneously as art and as living space for the artist. The concept of “individual mythology,” formulated by Harald Szeemann on the occasion of Documenta 5, was already