Michael Buthe

“For me my sun is, like all images, a functional object for seeing, for feeling, for dreaming, for understanding.”
–Michael Buthe

Michael Buthe’s (1944–94) international fame is linked to his participation in Harald Szeemann’s ground breaking exhibitions When Attitudes Become Form (1969) and documenta 5 (1972), in which Buthe’s work was presented in the section “Individual Mythologies.” Haus der Kunst is pleased to present the exhibition Michael Buthe as his approach to different cultures and his artistic position have a new relevance today opening a wide field for discussion.

Michael Buthe was fearless. Grounded in German Informalism and American Minimal Art, he was passionate about non-European cultures and countered the cool concept of Minimalism with a pronounced sensuality. He questioned the value of spirituality in a secular society. His imagery contains elements from various cultures. Though it is not the juxtaposition of these but, rather, the bridging of them that is central to his artistic approach. A bizarre self-presentation and combining of the various areas of his life testify to a self-centeredness that presents the artist himself in the center of a private cosmology, without his losing sight of the formal and contextual focus of artistic processes. Buthe’s works, which attest to a consistently procedural approach, arise from a transitory thinking pervaded by physical form and intellectual content.

The retrospective analysis of Michael Buthe’s short but intense period of creativity brings together a selection of key works from the late 1960s to his death in 1994. It presents the formal diversity of his work and includes cloth paintings, drawings, assemblages, sculptures, paintings and collages. The anchors of the exhibition are two original installations, Taufkapelle mit Mama und Papa, which Buthe created in 1984 for his exhibition Inch Allah in Ghent, and Die Heilige Nacht der Jungfräulichkeit, which was created in 1992 for the DOCUMENTA IX.

The catalogue Michael Buthe. Retrospective is edited by Kunstmuseum Lucerne, S.M.A.K., Ghent, and Haus der Kunst, Munich. With a foreword by Fanni Fetzer, Philippe Van Cauteren and Okwui Enwezor; with essays by Martin Germann, Dominik Müller, Heinz Stahlhut, and Ulrich Wilmes. Published by Hatje Cantz.

A cooperation between Kunstmuseum Luzern, S.M.A.K., Gent, and Haus der Kunst, Munich. Idea and concept: Heinz Stahlhut, Kunstmuseum Luzern.

Press contact:
Elena Heitsch
presse [​at​] hausderkunst.de

Currently on view:
A History: Contemporary Art from the Centre Pompidou
Till September 4, 2016

Capsule 05 / 06: João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva / Sara MacKillop
Till September 18, 2016

DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT – VON DEN FREUNDEN HAUS DER KUNST.
Laure Prouvost – We would be floating away from the dirty past
Till September 18, 2016

Interventions into Architecture: Christian Boltanski and Gustav Metzger
Till September 18, 2016

No Place like Home
Sammlung Goetz at Haus der Kunst
Till January 8, 2017

Coming soon:
Postwar – Art between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-1965
October 14, 2016–March 26, 2017
A landmark exhibition project that focuses on the production of art across all continents, under the conditions engendered by the Second World War. Representing an in-depth, global study of painting, sculpture, installation, performance, cinema, and music, Postwar: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-1965 will be organized around eight thematic sections that enfold different regional, national and transnational relations and connections.

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