André Butzer was Born in 1973 in Stuttgart.

Butzer is world-renowned for his large-scale Neo-Expressionist works, characterized by colorful canvases filled with a thick layer of paint. His style is often defined as “science-fiction expressionism”, a distinct genre that straddles the line between figurative and the abstract.

In 1996, together with a group of fellow-artists, Butzer founded the “revolutionary” Akademie Isotrop in Hamburg. The academy was independent of the government and was based on self-management and autonomy. Its members educated each other, organized public talks, held round tables and debates, published the magazine, and curated a number of exhibitions in numerous cities in Germany, Austria, and England. The academy remained active until 2000.

Butzer’s pictorial method was precisely derived from his experience of collective art practice. His early work was engaged with post-non-objectivism of Albert Oehlen and Asger Jorn, a concept that stands for “renewal” of abstract art. In his intense, occasionally aggressive paintings, Butzer mixed primeval imagery with references to vivid historical themes, enhancing the pictorial effect with his signature visual codes. The chaotic repetition of facial fragments, sneering masks with deep-set eyes, is characteristic of early twentieth-century caricatures. The horror and excitement conveyed in the subject refer to Munch’s “Scream” and De Kooning’s “Woman”.

The vivid immediacy of Butzer’s artistic style is embodied in his signature technique of expressive brushwork and extensive use of a variety of fluorescent pigments. In his series of monochrome works, Butzer sprawlingly applies the scattered, sharp strokes to canvases, approaching in his experiments toward an abstract expressionism of the pictorial work by Joan Mitchell.

‘Important is only the image. There is no process or progress. There is only entity, essence, destruction, endless annihilation and love.’ – Andre Butzer

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, Germany
Carré d’art – Musée d’Art Contemporain de Nîmes, Nîmes, France
Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany
Kunsthalle Hamburg u.a., Hamburg, Germany
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany
Central Cultural Andratx, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
Museum Kornelimünster, Aachen, Germany
Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Kunstakademie, Bergen, Norway