André Butzer
André Butzer, Nino Mier Gallery, New York, March 16 — April 29, 2023
“Getting older, a painter’s paintings become more complex but seem simpler.”
—André Butzer
Dan Golden speaks with painter André Butzer about his latest exhibition at Nino Mier Gallery in New York.
André Butzer was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1973 and lives in Berlin-Wannsee.
Institutional solo exhibitions include Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, and Kunstverein Friedrichshafen (2023); Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen (2022); YUZ Museum, Shanghai, and Museum of the Light, Hokuto (2020); IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen (2018); Växjö Konsthall, Växjö (2017); Bayerisches Armeemuseum, Ingolstadt, and Neue Galerie Gladbeck (2016); Kunstverein Reutlingen (2015); Künstlerhaus – Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz (2014); Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, and Kunsthistorisches Museum / Theseustempel, Vienna (2011); Kunsthalle Nuremberg (2009); Kunstverein Ulm (2005); Kunstverein Heilbronn (2004).
Selected public collections include Aurora Museum, Shanghai; Art Institute of Chicago; Carré d’Art, Nîmes; Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York; Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn; Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Faye G. Allen Centre for the Visual Arts, University of Washington, Seattle; Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen | Bonn; Hall Art Foundation, Reading / VT | Derneburg; Hölderlinturm, Tübingen; IKOB Musée d’Art Contemporain, Eupen; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin State Museums, Berlin; LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Marciano Art Collection, Los Angeles; MARe Museum, Bucharest; Miettinen Collection, Helsinki | Berlin; MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; National Gallery: Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin; Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Rubell Museum, Miami; YUZ Museum, Shanghai.
Dan Golden: Can you please provide an introduction to your new exhibition at Nino Mier Gallery and the character of the woman who serves as the subject?
André Butzer: The subject is painting. There is no show title and no painting in the show has a title. Painting as such is the woman and this is why I paint, if you know what I mean. I am a very conservative painter. Painting as such is only conservative, so there is no other way.
DG: Are the paintings created purely from your imagination, or is there a specific source?
AB: I am dumb, and everything is pure Imagination. What a world this could be!
DG: Your work over the past several years has become increasingly focused and simple. What inspired this evolution from your seemingly more complex paintings?
AB: I thought, it’s the other way around. This is how we met, the paintings and I. I can say, now they seem simpler but in reality they’re more complex than the ones that originally seemed complex, yes, it’s true. Getting older, a painter’s paintings become more complex but seem simpler. It’s easy.
André Butzer, Nino Mier Gallery, New York, March 16 — April 29, 2023
André Butzer, Nino Mier Gallery, New York, March 16 — April 29, 2023
DG: On different occasions, you mentioned Matisse being a specific artistic reference — what about his work resonates with you in particular?
AB: I am Henri Matisse, as I believe in reincarnation. Earlier, I thought, I was Munch, I was wrong. It’s not easy to detect all of this in the beginning.
DG: Are there other artists from the past that resonate with you?
AB: All of them. Mostly Cézanne, Mondrian, Anselm Kiefer, Walter Zimmermann, Cris and Kurt Kirkwood, Derrick Bostrom, Giotto, Veronese, Donald Judd (only as a phantasy), more of Anselm Kiefer, Rembrandt, Friedrich Hölderlin, Tiziano, definitely not Goya and not even Vélazquez!
André Butzer, Nino Mier Gallery, New York, March 16 — April 29, 2023
André Butzer, Altadena, California. Photo courtesy André Butzer Archive
DG: You lived and worked in California for several years. What was that experience like for you? Is this time reflected in your work?
AB: I was able to see the rest of California, before it disappeared. This experience had entered my work even before I moved there. Now, I am back in the country I don´t like. I like the forest and the river, though. Painting is European. I am back to the home of Christian painting and I am a Christian painter.
DG: What inspired your return to color and figuration in 2017, 2018, after almost a decade of working primarily in black and white?
AB: We live and die simultaneously, our life is dying. This is how to return.
André Butzer, Nino Mier Gallery, New York, March 16 — April 29, 2023
DG: What are you listening to, watching, or reading now?
AB: I’m listening to the entire catalog of German composer Walter Zimmermann. I read Martin Heidegger’s Nietzsche 1 and Nietzsche 2.
G: What does your typical day look like? What is your life like when you’re not painting?
AB: I always paint.
DG: Can you share what you have upcoming next?
AB: I have a show at a museum in Spain, I forgot the name … Also, I have a show at the Kebbel Villa | Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf, it’s in Fronberger Straße 31. This is in the state of Bavaria, towards the Bayrischer Wald mountain area. I will for the first time avoid all the walls in the exhibition space and show no paintings and no drawings at all. It will be amazing.
André Butzer
Nino Mier Gallery
New York
March 16 — April 29, 2023
Installation photography by Tom Powel Imaging courtesy of Nino Mier Gallery.