On the occasion of André Butzer’s 50th birthday, Timo Miettinen invites you to a special show arranged especially by the artist at Salon Dahlmann.
Fig.above: André Butzer, Ohne Titel (Colby Canyon), 2021, Öl auf Leinwand, 288 × 239 cm, Miettinen Collection, Berlin / Helsinki; 2023: André Butzer, Foto: def image
The exhibition pays tribute to Butzer’s 30 years of work and presents a large number of never-before shown works, including Untitled, 1999, from the painter’s personal collection. The show in Berlin takes place parallel to his extensive retrospective at the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid and his presentation at the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf.
Like a parable, Butzer’s painting embodies the recurring extremes of history as symbols of human existence. The fateful wanderer strides homeless across the earth. Full of longing for a place of his own, he is both a witness and a perpetrator of man-made devastation and horror. As a later descendant of Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, he could be an alter ego or even a self-portrait and then again not. The figure of the woman holds her own on the border between this world and the hereafter in vulnerable impotence and rigorous fortune. Modest and mild, she could be a Marian icon who brings together the present and the absent anew: Imprints of death and traces of the living.
In his so-called N-paintings (2010-2017), Butzer creates a pictorial figure his so-called N-pictures (2010-2017), Butzer creates a pictorial figure that inevitably the finiteness as well as the possibilities of existence. In this immense relationship of imageless immediacy, each painting is unique, unrepeatable, individual and constantly challenges our wavering position in the world. in the world. Together, all the N-paintings form a threshold that is “non-corporeal is not corporeal and yet at the same time seems corporeal again”. Completely alien, but entirely human: broken, ashamed and overwhelmed, upright, composed and steadfast and steadfast.
For the first time on canvas, four paintings spread out individual dabs of colour or brushstrokes. They ponder and shift the primary colours of red, yellow and blue, supplemented by a few flesh tones. They expose the building blocks and the colouristic and historical heritage of Butzer’s paintings, which are neither merely figurative nor abstract, but emerge entirely from the harmony and presence of colour. Figures and colours are interwoven and consolidated. Each layer of paint, each block of colour, each splash of colour is in harmony with the basic directions of the canvas. In contrast to their opulent scattering, all expressive settings resonate together, creating the fragile balance of the painterly whole.
In addition, André Butzer has selected 18 works by artists from the Miettinen Collection for presentation in the collector’s living space. Both exhibitions will open at Gallery Weekend (28 – 30 April 2023).
Accompanying events
Sa, 10. June, 15:00 – 16:00
Exhibition tour with guests
Sa, 8. July, 15:00 – 16:00
Exhibition tour with guests
Sa, 19. August, 15:00 – 16:00
Summer party and exhibition tour with guests
Please register for the guided tours by mail: info@miettinen-collection.de
WHERE?
Salon Dahlmann
Marburger Straße 3
10789 Berlin-Zehlendorf
WHEN?
Gallery Weekend: 28.04.-30.04.2023, Fr-Su 11 am – 7 pm
Exhibition: 28.04.-27.08.2023, saturdays 12 am – 6 pm
