On display sculptures, drawings, watercolors, shots, prints and models from the 1970s to the present
In Venice, the lagoon is enchanted by “Thomas Schütte. Genealogies”. Until November 23rd, curated by Camille Morineau and Jean-Marie Gallais, the powerful exhibition (150 pieces) at Punta della Dogana unfolds the German artist’s career through a varied body of sculptures, drawings, watercolors, prints, photographs and models. The figure, exaggerated or implied, investigated through the projection of its transience and concretely defined on multiple dimensions by a confident hand, is the focal point of the collection, spanning productive decades from the 1970s to today. The works, some already in the Pinault Collection and others making their Italian debut, offer a broad artistic scope. The physical, material and plastic component of the artist’s poetics, his works executed, not merely conceived, constantly position him beyond the influence of any historical context. His distinctive expression solidifies his role as an outsider and precursor in a cycle that, as the saying goes, “even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day”, bending to the circularity of the eternal return of the figurative. A recent bronze, Mutter Erde (2024), greets visitors at the entrance courtyard, almost eliminating any doubt about a chronological presentation of the exhibition. It depicts a reassuring yet unstable character, depending on the angle of view. Placed in the tower, its monumental counterpart, Vater Staat (2010), stands nearly 4 meters tall and is a sharp allegory of power, embodying the ironic tone with which the artist interrogates paradoxes, alternating between severity and fragility (the draped clothes of the figure take one’s breath away).
Deformed, tragic, grotesque figures like Mann im Wind guide us through the entire exhibition
Recurring motifs, explored with various techniques and materials, deformities, tragic and grotesque subjects accompany all the exhibition rooms. Among the highlights are Mann im Wind (2018) - men trapped in the mud, a metaphor for perseverance against failure, a theme Schütte has explored since the 1980s -, Efficiency Men (2005) - unsettling creatures with silicone-colored faces and iron skeletons and blankets: a fierce critique of capitalism and the efficiency-driven logic - and the Geister, introduced in 1995. These are mysterious, elusive bodies with theatrical gestures, first made in wax and then in aluminum, bronze, or glass, with hundreds of variations evoking the atmosphere of a suspended world. Considerable space is also dedicated to the practice of architecture in the Bunker, the first of which was created in 1981. These are symbolic and primordial shelters from violence. Thomas Schütte, who received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2005, was born in 1954 in Oldenburg. He lives and works in Düsseldorf, where he shapes his eccentric universe.
Mutter Erde is a reassuring yet unstable figure depending on the viewer's perspective
