SCHUTTE: THOMAS SCHUTTE RETROSPECTIVE

This major retrospective volume on the celebrated contemporary German artist is a kaleidoscopic sampling of Thomas Schütte's exploration of the perversity and pleasure of modern life. Organized around the themes of models, monuments, and memorials-key subjects in Schüttes art-this volume offers a comprehensive selection of work from the late 1970s to today by an artist considered a key figure of his generation. Schüttes installations, sculptures, prints, drawings, and watercolors often take contradictory forms, and his art may seem to depict alien worlds. Yet his focus is everyday life, whose basic constituents-natural, cultural, political-he revises, using a broad range of materials and colors, while asking questions about the place of art in society. Schütte has long engaged with many of the traditional genres of sculpture-the reclining female figure and the commemorative portrait bust, for example-yet the results are utterly unconventional. A deeply contrarian spirit informs his approach, resulting in a transformation of standard and formulaic modes into singular statements that reflect on history, politics, social space, and collective experience. Together the works in this book comprise an impressive career marked by constant change and innovation.