(born in Stuttgart in 1973)
“Der Realismus bereut nichts”, signed, dated A. Butzer 99 and again signed, dated, inscribed, with several drawings on the reverse, acrylic, lacquer on canvas, 215 x 155 cm, on stretcher

Provenance:
Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (gallery label and stamp on the stretcher)
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

“I’m not a painter, I’m an artist” 
André Butzer 2010

In interviews, exhibition catalogues and also at private views, André Butzer quite often expresses very radical art-theoretical opinions, and boldly underscores his own position with exhibition titles such as “Possibly the best abstract painter in the world” in the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, 2011. With the foundation of the Hamburg “Academy Isotrop” in 1996, André Butzer wanted to position himself beyond constraints and far from the institution of Art. The artists deliberately wanted to appear “trashy” and, at their first exhibition in the Contemporary Fine Art Galerie, Berlin, in 1999 did not allow any mention of the makers’ names. The first individual show of Butzer in 2000 indulged itself in opulence: gold, neon and large-scale works dominate the gallery and his signature was flaunted on each of the colourful works – the attitude towards the art market has distinctly altered.

“Realism regrets nothing!” is chorused in concert from the canvas. The insufficient insight into its derivation from historical tradition makes a true enemy out of the realistic method.

André Butzer designates his own works as Science Fiction Expressionism. For his works from the mid-1990s, he utilizes self-created figures inspired by Walt Disney, which he nevertheless integrates into his large-scale paintings, laden with figures and symbols, as synonyms for historical individuals. This thematic terror is offset by the world of comics and their stylistic distancing effect, to which not only the big saucer eyes of Butzer‘s figures refer.

“Every amused volition ends, it becomes quiet and he himself the echo of his pictures: ‘I have, however, made fun for far too long of the representation in my pictures of very sad, crying figures, who are disguised as atom-people. At some point everything comes back, and one starts to cry. The realism in the painting is beyond an unfulfillable task.’ The hiatus between the world’s outdoor space and the interior space of a picture cannot be denied. One can accept it in order to respond to it.”
André Butzer in conversation with Albert Oehlen 2001, quoted from: exhibition catalogue André Butzer, “Der wahrscheinlich beste abstrakte Maler der Welt” in der Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Cologne 2011, p. 57f

Provenance:
Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (gallery label and stamp on the stretcher)
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

In interviews, exhibition catalogues and also at private views, André Butzer quite often expresses very radical art-theoretical opinions, and boldly underscores his own position with exhibition titles such as “Possibly the best abstract painter in the world” in the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, 2011. With the foundation of the Hamburg “Academy Isotrop” in 1996, André Butzer wanted to position himself beyond constraints and far from the institution of Art. The artists deliberately wanted to appear “trashy” and, at their first exhibition in the Contemporary Fine Art Galerie, Berlin, in 1999 did not allow any mention of the makers’ names. The first individual show of Butzer in 2000 indulged itself in opulence: gold, neon and large-scale works dominate the gallery and his signature was flaunted on each of the colourful works – the attitude towards the art market has distinctly altered.

“Realism regrets nothing!” is chorused in concert from the canvas. The insufficient insight into its derivation from historical tradition makes a true enemy out of the realistic method.

André Butzer designates his own works as Science Fiction Expressionism. For his works from the mid-1990s, he utilizes self-created figures inspired by Walt Disney, which he nevertheless integrates into his large-scale paintings, laden with figures and symbols, as synonyms for historical individuals. This thematic terror is offset by the world of comics and their stylistic distancing effect, to which not only the big saucer eyes of Butzer‘s figures refer.

“Every amused volition ends, it becomes quiet and he himself the echo of his pictures: ‘I have, however, made fun for far too long of the representation in my pictures of very sad, crying figures, who are disguised as atom-people. At some point everything comes back, and one starts to cry. The realism in the painting is beyond an unfulfillable task.’ The hiatus between the world’s outdoor space and the interior space of a picture cannot be denied. One can accept it in order to respond to it.”
André Butzer in conversation with Albert Oehlen 2001, quoted from: exhibition catalogue André Butzer, “Der wahrscheinlich beste abstrakte Maler der Welt” in der Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Cologne 2011, p. 57f

“I’m not a painter, I’m an artist”
André Butzer 2010