THOMAS SCHÜTTE EDITIONEN
17/09-30/11/2025
Photo: Luise Heuter © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
A Glimpse into the Printmaking Work of One of Germany’s Most Important Contemporary Artists
Thomas Schütte (*1954 in Oldenburg) is regarded as one of the most significant and influential artists of our time. Since the late 1970s, he has shaped the art scene in Germany and beyond with a multifaceted, cross-media oeuvre. Even as a student at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf – where he studied under, among others, Gerhard Richter – he developed an independent artistic language that deliberately moves between sculpture, architecture, drawing, and printmaking.
Schütte’s work revolves around existential questions of the human condition, social structures, power dynamics, and the relationship between the individual and the system. His most well-known works – such as the monumental sculpture series Frauen (“Women”) or Männerkopf (“Men’s Heads”) – are not only formally striking but also marked by deep ambivalence and psychological complexity. Schütte is not a conceptual artist in the strict sense, but rather an intuitive seeker who experiments, varies, and reflects across different media.
⸻
The Role of Printmaking in Schütte’s Oeuvre
Alongside his sculptural and architectural works, printmaking occupies a central place in Schütte’s artistic practice. The exhibition Thomas Schütte – Editions is the first in the Black Forest to focus on his printmaking and clearly shows how consistently and experimentally the artist has engaged with etching, screen printing, lithography, and digital printing techniques since the 1980s.
In etching – a classical intaglio process – Schütte uses the technical possibilities to develop complex linear structures and atmospheric density. His portraits and figurative works, in particular, reveal the precision with which he employs etching and aquatint to evoke psychological depth and emotional tension. These prints often feel like intimate studies, imbued with contemplation, solitude, or inner unrest.
In the realm of screen printing – a process characterized by bold color fields and clean forms – Schütte reveals a different facet of his work. Here, he plays with repetition, layering, and serial thinking. The visual language becomes more graphic, almost pop-art-like, without ever losing the multilayered depth that runs through his entire oeuvre.
Lithography, a technique that allows for direct drawing on stone, enables Schütte to work with gestural immediacy. Particularly in his architectural sketches and head studies, the freedom of this method becomes apparent – combining a draftsmanship approach with the serial nature of printmaking. These lithographs are often powerfully expressive and reflect the tension between form and fragment, body and space.
In recent years, Schütte has also explored inkjet pigment printing – a high-quality digital technique. This allows him to merge photography, drawing, and painting, opening up new visual worlds. The resulting works may differ formally from traditional printmaking, yet thematically they remain deeply rooted in his core concerns: body, identity, isolation, and power.
The exhibition Thomas Schütte – Editions offers an in-depth look at a particularly nuanced facet of Schütte’s oeuvre. It reveals how the artist approaches printmaking not as a byproduct, but as an autonomous and experimental field. With a sculptor’s eye and a keen sensitivity to technical detail, Schütte treats printmaking as a space for thought, inquiry, and creation. His editions are not reproductions – they are original artistic statements that make a vital contribution to contemporary printmaking.
