This major retrospective volume on the celebrated contemporary German artist is a kaleidoscopic sampling of Thomas Schutte's exploration of the perversity and pleasure of modern life. Organized around the themes of models, monuments, and memorials key subjects in Schutte's 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. Schutte's s installations, sculptures, prints, drawings, and watercolours 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 colours, while asking questions about the place of art in society. Schutte's 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. AUTHOR: Lynne Cooke is Curator of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and Curator at Large for the Dia Art Foundation, New York. Penelope Curtis is Curator at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Christine Mehring is Professor of Art History, the University of Chicago ILLUSTRATIONS 130 illustrations
