Michael Buthe (1944)
Germany
Biography :
"Born in 1944 in Sonthofen (Germany) – died in 1994 in Bad Godesberg (Germany)
Michael Buthe is a German painter, sculptor and writer. He belongs to the same generation of artists as his compatriots Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, and if his international reputation is not identical, his work has nevertheless been widely exhibited in Germany (notably during four documenta as well as at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and at the Folkwang Museum in Essen) and more exceptionally in Europe and the United States. In 2016, S.M.A.K., Ghent, dedicated a retrospective to him with key works by the artist from the early 1960s to the early 1990s.
From 1964 to 1968, Michael Buthe studied at the Werkkunstschule in Kassel, first in the applied painting and morphology class of Adolf Buchleiter, then in that of Arnold Bode. He moved to Cologne at the end of his course and then participated a year later, in 1969, in Harald Szeemann's legendary exhibition When attitudes become form at the Kunsthalle in Bern. At the end of the 1960s, his practice seemed to seek a middle path between the two antagonistic currents of minimalism and antiform. In Weisses Bild (1969), the artist combines the orthogonal volume of a stretcher and the flexibility of a torn canvas in an approach aimed at deconstructing the materiality of the painting object. In 1971, he made a decisive trip to Morocco, not only on a human level but also from an artistic point of view, his practice being profoundly changed. He came away fascinated as much by the power of bright, warm colors as by the traditional materials and objects he observed. On his return to Cologne in 1977, he began writing an oriental tale The Travels of Ben Ismael Saladin. From then on, the Orient, its spirituality, its mythology and its people occupy a central place in its practice and shape its relationship with the world. His hitherto minimalist production is evacuated, even refuted, in favor of a refined and exuberant baroque, multiplying the effects of brilliance and textures. Fall 1-Marrakech (1982), for example, clearly shows the new plastic vocabulary used by the artist, now working by accumulation and superposition of materials (here an embroidered curtain and shiny paper) also giving his work a decorative dimension.
Michael Buthe now develops a dreamlike universe crossed by the evocative powers of dreams and desire, far from the rigor and rationality of the famous minimalist credo advocating “Less is more”. The artist also uses collages as in Untitled (1987-1988) where he tore and pasted photographs of famous people taken from magazines which he covered with gold-painted stars. Shortly before his death in 1994, he published a final collection of poems, Steine [The Stones], on the occasion of a personal exhibition at the Galerie Orangerie-Reinz in Cologne."
(Source, website, Contemporary art institute of Villeurbanne)