Thomas Rentmeister

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Thomas Rentmeister

Thomas Rentmeister (born March 4, 1964 in Reken ) is a German sculptor and professor at the University of Fine Arts Braunschweig .

Life

Thomas Rentmeister, untitled, 2011, Nutella on coated chipboard, 350 × 1200 × 16 cm, installation view Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2011
Thomas Rentmeister, Muda, 2011, various materials, approx. 385 × 1195 × 1145 cm, installation view Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2011
Thomas Rentmeister, untitled, 2007, frying pans / concrete, dimensions variable (heights from 25 to 131 cm)
Thomas Rentmeister, untitled, 2000, Nutella, approx. 25 × 270 × 180 cm
Thomas Rentmeister, front: untitled, 1994, polyester, 38 × 160 × 149 cm - back: untitled, 1993, polyester

From 1987 to 1993 Rentmeister studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Günther Uecker and Alfonso Hüppi . In 1999 he took on a teaching position at the Kassel Art College . From 2002 to 2004 he was visiting professor at the Berlin University of the Arts . From 2005 to 2006 he was teaching at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art . In 2007 he received a visiting professorship at the Braunschweig University of Art. Since 2009 he has held a professorship for sculpture there. He lives in Berlin.

plant

In the 1990s Rentmeister became known to a wider audience with high-gloss polyester sculptures. Some look like oversized blobs, others like cartoon characters. From 1999 on Rentmeister repeatedly used Nutella and Penaten cream for his work. He uses “household materials from industrial mass production - from sugar cubes and cotton swabs to paper tissues, sockets and entire refrigerators.” They become sculptures.

"His works are never hermetic, self-contained works of art, monads of the aesthetic; they always let the identity of the materials used, which are far from art, shine through." .

In terms of form and style, Rentmeister refers to Minimal Art, "whose strict formal language he refreshes with a strong pinch of post-pop and Dadaist non-conformism". Ursula Panhans-Bühler found the term “impure” minimalism for his work.

In feature articles and exhibition catalogs Rentmeister's humor is emphasized: "His tools are humor and his attitude is that of a parodist." He knows "to harmonize both formal and content-related density with humor in a light-footed and completely unpathetic way". But he should not only be seen as a “chief ironic”. Rentmeister said on Deutschlandfunk : “My work is always saturated with irony, but it is not the only drive I have. You could also leave out the irony, then they would also work. "

Rentmeister and his work defy a one-dimensional definition. "Rentmeister's work oscillates between a pathetic desire for art and a humorous criticism of art and institutions, between reference to everyday life and claims to art, whereby he carefully avoids taking a clear position."

The philosopher Hannes Böhringer attests to the artist in his essay Refrigerator broken : "All interpretations slip off him." His refrigerator works create "a picture of the final entropic state of art".

Stephan Berg describes the “balancing act between seduction and repulsion, between the aesthetic and the unpleasant” as an important “motor of Rentmeister's work”; Above all, the artist wants to find the point “at which the sweet and the beautiful turn into the disgusting, suppressed, unsuitable.” According to this, Rentmeister's oeuvre pervades a “paradoxical strategy of ambivalence”. The theme of transience also pervades “discreetly, but still unmistakably large stretches of the oeuvre ”.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Group exhibitions (selection)

Public collections (selection)

Works by Thomas Rentmeister are represented in these collections (alphabetical order): Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck , Remagen; Kolumba (Museum) , Cologne; Art Museum Bonn ; MARTa Herford ; Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum , Rotterdam, Netherlands; Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt am Main; Museum Ludwig , Cologne; Museum Ostwall in the Dortmunder U, Dortmund; Museum Ritter , Waldenbuch; Municipal Museum Abteiberg , Mönchengladbach; Lehmbruck Museum , Duisburg

Awards (selection)

  • 2002 Piepenbrock Young Talent Award for Sculpture
  • 1996 Working grant from the Art Fund Foundation , Bonn
  • 1988 Philip Morris scholarship in Berlin

literature

  • Christoph Schreier (Ed.): Thomas Rentmeister: Objects.Food.Rooms. Kunstmuseum Bonn / Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2011, ISBN 978-3-832193-96-6 .
  • Hannelore Kersting (arrangement): Contemporary art. 1960 to 2007 . Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-924039-55-4 .
  • Ellen Seifermann, Kunsthalle Nürnberg (ed.): Thomas Rentmeister: Zwischenlandung. Ostfildern 2004, ISBN 978-3-7757-9196-0 .
  • Udo Kittelmann, Kölnischer Kunstverein (ed.): Thomas Rentmeister: brown / brown. Cologne 2002, ISBN 978-3-7757-9107-6 .
  • Martin Köttering, Roland Nachtigäller , Städtische Galerie Nordhorn (ed.): Thomas Rentmeister. Sculptures. Nordhorn 1998, ISBN 978-3-922303-28-2 .
  • Thomas Rentmeister, Welcome. Catalog for the exhibition at Galerie Otto Schweins, Cologne 1996.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Rentmeister  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Schreier: Culture paste. The rebirth of modernity from Nutella and Penaten cream. in: Thomas Rentmeister - Objects. Food. Rooms. Catalog Kunstmuseum Bonn and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Cologne 2011, p. 28.
  2. ^ Leigh Robb: Condition Report. in: Thomas Rentmeister - Objects. Food. Rooms. Catalog Kunstmuseum Bonn and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Cologne 2011, p. 137.
  3. ↑ Christoph Schreier: Culture paste. The rebirth of modernity from Nutella and Penaten cream. P. 26.
  4. ↑ a b Magdalena Kröner: Painting with Penaten Cream. Thomas Rentmeister in Bonn. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 29, 2011.
  5. ↑ Christoph Schreier: Culture paste. The rebirth of modernity from Nutella and Penaten cream. P. 25.
  6. ↑ Ursula Panhans-Bühler: Heavy sweetness and gravity sweetness. in: Thomas Rentmeister - brown. Catalog Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne 2002, p. 29.
  7. ↑ a b Christoph Schreier: Culture paste. The rebirth of modernity from Nutella and Penaten cream. P. 30.
  8. ↑ Stefanie Stadel: Between pleasure and weariness. in: K.West - The culture magazine of the West. 11/2011.
  9. ↑ Peter Backof: Nutella, tampons and penate cream. in: Corso. Culture after three. on Deutschlandfunk, October 19, 2011.
  10. ↑ Hannes Böhringer: Refrigerator broken , in: Thomas Rentmeister - Objects. Food. Rooms., Catalog Kunstmuseum Bonn and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Cologne 2011, p. 110
  11. ↑ a b Stephan Berg: Are you sure that the light in the refrigerator will go out when you close the refrigerator door? in: Thomas Rentmeister - Objects. Food. Rooms. Catalog Kunstmuseum Bonn and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Cologne 2011, p. 52/54.
  12. ↑ Piepenbrock Young Talent Award for Sculpture on hamburgerbahnhof.de
personal data
SURNAME Rentmeister, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 4th 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Reken