Malerei 1981–2022 is a solo exhibition of Werner Büttner’s work at Galerie Max Hetzler, Bleibtreustraße 45 and 15/16 in Berlin. This is the artist's tenth solo exhibition with the gallery.
Absurdity, irony and ambivalence play a central role in Werner Büttner's paintings, which gained recognition in the late 1970s under the term ‘Bad Painting’. Motifs of classical modernism are reworked, sometimes with the help of linguistic elements, and thus become unflinching commentaries on society and the broader condition humaine. ‘The generation before us – the conceptual artists – had declared painting as an outdated, bourgeois medium to be abolished. This prohibition had to be broken by us descendants, out of defiance, for distinction, and because the laws of generation demand it. And so, in juvenile presumption, I took hold of almost all known categories of painting – still lifes, self-portraits, animal pictures, seascapes, history painting, religious subjects, etc.’, the artist explains.
This exhibition comprises works from a creative period of over 40 years, offering an impressive insight into Büttner's practice. The impasto painting, applied in rapid brushstrokes and alla prima (wet- on-wet), lends the works a coarseness that is further emphasised by the typical artist's frames made of wooden slats. Isolated splashes and streaks of paint, created by the explosive movements of the brush, reinforce the dynamism and power of the paintings. In the later works, this fast technique is replaced by a more precise painterly style, yielding images with a greater intellectual and visual subtlety. A block of drawings and a group of sculptures by the artist will also be shown at Bleibtreustraße 15/16.
Malerei 1981-2022 is on view until August 19th at Galerie Max Hetzler, Bleibtreustraße 45 and 15/16, 10623 Berlin