Past
Alexander Butter
Masterpieces in Bronze
One could accuse the young artist Alexander Butter of deception, because the works shown in his solo exhibition Masterpieces in Bronze disappoint any expectation connoted with the title.
Sculptural structures made of plaster, cardboard, and paint, rendered in pastel tones, childishly naive, eclectic-looking forms, and motifs that seem as if they cannot decide between abstraction and figuration challenge viewers to question and redefine their own expectations and habits of seeing. The works, all of which are untitled, thus offer projection surfaces for individual interpretations and charges.
The artist playfully questions patterns and mechanisms inherent in the art-historical canon by playing with traditional forms and parameters of sculptural art. Involving the gallery space, the result is a pastel-colored microcosm of playful examination of these parameters in which it is up to the viewers themselves to decide whether this is a reinterpretation of the bronze sculptural masterpiece or a questioning of this narrative.
Elsa Mack