20 Menoc Hotel

Sculpture 3 elements, 97 × 275 × 12.5 cm, 65 × 236 × 30 cm, 63.5 × 152 × 75 cm

Unclassifiable and protean, Thomas Schütte's work casts an uneasy and ironic gaze on the human condition by blending techniques and genres. Architectural models, sculptures, photographs, drawings, and prints constitute a true "repertoire," which, in the artist's words, aims to "introduce a distorted question mark into the world." Influenced by Gerhard Richter's teachings, Schütte initially designs architectural models, which are true "thinking models." While he creates spaces, the artist is also a formidable ambassador of the figure. Caricatured, sometimes maltreated, yet always moving, the figure comes to life through clay, wax, ceramic, steel, or bronze, in full-length portraits or character heads. Balancing violence and naivety, intimacy and theatricality, Thomas Schütte's singular universe has established him as one of the mythical figures of contemporary German sculpture.