Thomas Schütte: Big Buildings (Models and Views 1980-2010)

Since the early 1980's, Thomas Schütte—a three-times participant in the documenta in Kassel, winner of the 2010 Düsseldorf Art Prize, and best individual artist at the 2005 Venice Biennale—has worked on architectural models, scenes, and figurative scenarios. Replete with notes on relative dimensions or accompanied by small figures, they correspond to the realization on a larger scale, with many originally small models having been converted into large-scale works over time. The interplay between the small and the large, between the model and its realization, and between the notions of art as a model and the models as art are recurring themes throughout Thomas Schütte’s oeuvre. He both instigated the publication of this voluminous book about the show in Bonn and laid down its specific detail, so there is scarcely a single group of works missing from this chronological survey of the past thirty years. The model itself is not just the nucleus of both a fantastical oeuvre, but takes on a more seismographic function and rediscovers the architectural arts on behalf of fine art.