André Butzer

The paintings of André Butzer involve opposite approaches: some of the canvases show a private world of cartoon-like faces and figures, while others show strictly abstract lines or colorfields executed in a free and easy manner. Butzer entered the limelight around the millennium with bright canvases peopled by figures from a playful sort of mythology inspired by heroes from high culture and entertainment, from the poet Hölderlin to Walt Disney. He found his own place in painting in a universe centered around the unreachable place of Nasaheim far in outer space and the inaccessible N-House, home to all the colors. Then, after five years, his fluency in colors led to abstract paintings of freewheeling lines interlocking into compositions. His next radical step was to explore a more somber black or gray and white palette that took the color out of colorfield painting until in recent years he returned to the family of figuration with new a new attitude refined by his abstract experiences.

This is the first book to span the full range of Butzer’s oeuvre. His own selection of paintings delivers the story of his artistic curiosity, interspersed with typically offbeat quotes from the artist that illuminate his idiosyncratic stance. The introduction, written by editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, investigates the different work phases, contemplating invented figurations and perceived abstractions as objects in themselves rather than as pictures of objects or ideas. And most of all, the books pristine, large-format illustrations fully evidence the painterly finesse that place this artist among the finest protagonists of contemporary painting.

In this exclusive Art Edition of one of a hundred individually painted pendant lights (No. 1–100), Butzer projects both his themes of the abstract line and the friendly face onto a light orb, painting the lamp on one half globe as a glowing canvas (or like the moon’s near side, which is what we see from Earth). The abstract spots and lines form a playful composition of intense hues, while the faces light up the room, reminding us of Renaissance depictions of the planets with human countenances: celestial bodies in cheerful heights (Hölderlin). This lamp comes in an exclusive art edition of 100, each lamp a unique object, individually painted and signed by the artist. Also available in a second Art Edition (No. 1–25), each with a unique cover overpainted and signed by the artist.

The artist: André Butzer was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1973. For more than 25 years he has painted his way through the extremes of the 20th century, exploring art, politics, and pop culture. Paintings for him are “localizations of the greatest despair and the greatest hope,” which is exactly why “they come closest to the very joy and aid we are in dire need of.” After spending several years in California, he now lives in the southwest of Berlin and is one of the most internationally recognized painters of his generation.