Winfried Muthesius

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Winfried Muthesius, 2014

Winfried Muthesius (born August 28, 1957 in Berlin ) is a German painter , photographer and installation artist .

Life

His great-great-uncle was the German architect Hermann Muthesius . Since the death of his wife Marianne Muthesius (2001), he has also been the owner of a real estate company. He is the father of Laura Muthesius, blogger and photographer.

He lives and works in Berlin and Brandenburg.

Artistic work

X-Series II, pittura oscura
Winfried Muthesius, 2016

Muthesius studied at the University of the Arts (now the University of the Arts ) in Berlin (1979–1984). He was a student of Hermann Wiesler , whose art-sociological explanations shaped him. His first artistic stint abroad led in 1982/82 to Florence at the Accademia di Belle Arti . There he dealt with the architecture of the city. The first works in ink, watercolor, tempera and oil emerged from a large number of sketches.

From 1982 he focused on the Brandenburg Gate in his hometown Berlin as a motif for his works. These show how Muthesius emphasizes his formal language more and more through reduction and thus lays the foundation for his current painting style. In 1987 he received a work grant from the Künstlerhaus Salzburg . A series of Salzburg pictures comes from this phase. In 1988 he was drawn to New York regularly for the first time . Over the years, many sketches of towering spatial perspectives and architectural highlights have been made there, especially of the World Trade Center . After 9/11 he continued to work on Ground Zero until recently . When he received a work grant from the Berlin Senate in 1989 , he chose the neuralgic interface between East and West as the central motif in a series of pictures: the Brandenburg Gate .

His first series of cross and skull pictures date from 1991/1992 , which he continues to this day.

Muthesius began to develop the technique and concept of the pittura oscura in 1992 . These are multi-layered pictures with a sense of depth that arise in several work processes and combine the genres of photography and painting: Muthesius creates an original painting from a sketch. He places this in a public space and photographs it. The resulting photo is painted over and reproduced again. Muthesius has been working with this technique to this day.

The Stern series began in 1995. It includes large-format images. In the series Stern , but also Kreuz , violence from the past and present is discussed.

Stern
Winfried Muthesius, 1995

Stars of David carved into picture carriers with ax and chainsaw take up the expulsion of the Jewish people over the centuries, as a reminder against forgetting and for the respect and recognition of others.

With the cross pictures Muthesius dissolves the statics of the cross, so that an impression of movement arises. The crosses are applied in bitumen and oil to a large-format wooden picture carrier.

From 2002 Muthesius dedicated himself to monochrome paintings in gold, the Golden Fields , such as B. tabula aurea in the Staatliche Antikensammlung and Glyptothek , Munich or Der Himmel unter Berlin .

From this he developed the broken gold technique . The picture carrier provided with gold leaf is subsequently destroyed in parts, frayed or scratched on the surface. This creates works that point to fragility and vulnerability in history and time.

Muthesius allows himself to be addressed by different concrete elements in the room, which he sketches, paints, photographs, overpaints, further processes, installs, places in new contexts and with which he consciously wants to bring the viewer into perceptual conflicts and enable him to change perspectives and points of view.

The starting point for Muthesius' way of working is always a concrete object, the core of which he exposes through various techniques and reductions in several work processes.

Exhibition and installation locations (selection)

Permanent presentations and collections (selection)

tabula aurea (picture in the background)
State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich, permanent exhibit since 2003
Oil paintings
Golden Field , Broken Gold

Quotes on works by Winfried Muthesius sorted by work groups (selection)

Jörn Merkert on Brandenburg Gates :

“Again we encounter this contradiction which is so characteristic of Winfried Muthesius' attitude and which we have already been able to name in numerous contexts; this time in the simultaneity of the conscious and the unconscious. Or in the fact that the uniqueness and precision of the architecture in his painting are described with open, moving means. [...] On the intellectual level, it shows the very different terrain that he had explored and that international abstract expressionism had not yet entered. "

Christoph Tannert on Stern :

“With this series of pictures Muthesius designed a memory series that needs the void, because after all the racist acts of violence that are happening again in Germany […], it wants to point to something that has been broken out of the German culture. Slapping with the ax addresses past and present violence. [...] Even today, bitumen is associated with something of burning asphalt and scorched earth. Muthesius refers to our collective memory, the construction of which he demands from the viewer ... "

Thomas A. Baltrock on the cross :

“Winfried Muthesius [...] fixes our attention without binding it. His cross is a presence, not a reference, and thus catches up with age-old ecclesiastical traditions that have long been forgotten in the historicizing works that some new "church art" presents to us. "

Hermann Wiesler on skull pictures :

"[...] Muthesius' skull pictures directly refer back to life, as if" In the serious ossuary "(Goethe)" a source of life sprang from death "."

Thomas Sternberg on Golden Fields :

“... They are not complex installations, but unexpected, silent interventions in public space. Because in the simplest, in the most wretched, in completely insignificant places in everyday life, God can meet. As Joseph Beuys once put it: "The mysteries take place in the main train station." "

Christoph Tannert on Pittura Oscura :

“… Of course, the incorporated photographic images refer to clearly identifiable locations […] Muthesius doesn't just think of discontinuities, he celebrates them. [...] Muthesius puts his finger in the wound of the inadequate, knowing that the real thing has yet to happen. "

literature

  • Winfried Muthesius. Berlin pictures . Berlin 1985.
  • Winfried Muthesius. Peinture . MPM Project Bastille, Paris 1988.
  • Live art: with Frank Dornseif and Winfried Muthesius from the Martin-Gropius-Bau . ZDF 1989
  • Friedhelm Mennekes (ed.): Winfried Muthesius. Peinture - Painting - Painting . Münsterschwarzach 1990 (catalog for the exhibition in Paris, Cologne, Berlin, New York).
  • Gallery four (ed.): Winfried Muthesius. Brandenburg gates . Berlin 1991 (catalog for the exhibition in Leverkusen, Cologne, Berlin and Paris).
  • Thomas A. Baltrock (Ed.): Winfried Muthesius. Time breaks . Lübeck 1992.
  • Thomas Sternberg (Ed.): Winfried Muthesius. bright Schützenhof bunker. An installation by Winfried Muthesius . Munster 1994.
  • German Society for Christian Art (Ed.): Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche - steadfast crossroads . Munich 1995.
  • Thomas Sternberg (Ed.): Winfried Muthesius. Sky, painting . Munster 2001.
  • Winfried Muthesius. Star . Berlin, Trier 2002 (catalog for the exhibition in the Episcopal Cathedral and Diocesan Museum Trier, in collaboration with Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin, and the St. Matthew Foundation).
  • Winfried Muthesius. Golden Fields - The sky under Berlin . Münster 2003 (catalog for the exhibition in Berlin subway stations as part of the Ecumenical Church Congress in Berlin).
  • Jürgen Lenssen (Ed.): Winfried Muthesius. Time breaks . Bonn 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ photography-now.com
  2. ↑ Winfried Muthesius. Sky. Painting. Münster 2001, p. 14.
  3. ↑ “Winfried Muthesius is from Berlin and obviously one of the clairvoyant among them. For a Berliner, the Brandenburg Gate means more than a city symbol. It contains [...] the changing historical fate of the city. […] In 1982 the symbol of the apparently eternal division appears for the first time in his work… “ Heinz Ohff : A European leitmotif . In: Winfried Muthesius - Brandenburger Tore , Berlin 1991, p. 13.
  4. ↑ “Specifically, the work process looks like that I start to draw in the city, on site, in direct confrontation with a situation. My pictures are always based on series of drawings. In them I try to express the essentials of what I have seen with the help of very few and simple lines. ”[…]“ It is important to me that the formal language that I develop is a completely independent one, but always related to the direct confrontation with a real object. ”In: Friedhelm Mennekes : In conversation with Winfried Muthesius . In: W. Muthesius. Peinture. Painting. Painting. Münsterschwarzach 1990, p. 33.
  5. ↑ See Winfried Muthesius - Brandenburger Tore . Berlin 1991, p. 103.
  6. ↑ See Winfried Muthesius. Star. Berlin, Trier 2002, p. 37
  7. ↑ See W. Muthesius. Peinture. Painting. Painting. Münsterschwarzach 1990, p. 77.
  8. ↑ See Friedhelm Mennekes : In conversation with Winfried Muthesius . “The skyscrapers immediately gave off a very special fascination, especially the World Trade Center. This peculiar constellation of twin towers, which change their appearance a lot from different perspectives, has inspired me to do a large number of sketches. ”In: W. Muthesius. Peinture. Painting. Painting. Münsterschwarzach 1990, pp. 32/33.
  9. ↑ See Friedhelm Mennekes : In conversation with Winfried Muthesius . In: W. Muthesius. Peinture. Painting. Painting. Münsterschwarzach 1990, p. 32ff.
  10. ↑ See Winfried Muthesius. Star. Berlin, Trier 2002, p. 37.
  11. ↑ "The Brandenburg Gate is a leitmotif that runs through all of his previous work. […] The end of this series, the final rapture of the Brandenburg Gate from reality, so to speak, hangs - significantly, as one must add, and rightly so - in the Berlin Museum. " Heinz Ohff : A European leitmotif . In: Winfried Muthesius - Brandenburger Tore , 1991, p. 13.
  12. ↑ “In the same year 1992 Muthesius presented his cross picture in the historical crypt of St. Maria in the Capitol. At the same time, images of skulls can be seen in the Roman-Germanic Museum and in a district heating tunnel in Cologne. ”In Markus Wimmer : A picture story . In: Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche - steadfast crossroads. Munich 1995, p. 10.
  13. ↑ fnweb
  14. ↑ museum.com
  15. ↑ "The images are artefacts of brutal injury and destruction that are communicated in the object and visually trigger the association with the Holocaust." From Winfried Muthesius: In: Golden Fields. Winfried Muthesius. Berlin 2003, p. 2.
  16. ↑ "How below and above, light and dark, death and life, which compress the cross as a cosmic idea, Muthesius relives through the movement of history, which his image suffers." In: In Markus Wimmer . A picture story. In: Winfried Muthesius. Time breaks - steadfast crossroads. Munich 1995, p. 10.
  17. ↑ “In the same way as the damage to the initially colored and bitumen-overpainted surfaces, there are now panels on the subject of the cross.” See: Winfried Muthesius. In: Golden Fields. Winfried Muthesius. Berlin 2003, p. 2.
  18. ↑ “Another correspondence exists between a painting 'The Resurrection of Christ' from the 16th century near the tabernacle, which is attributed to Ercole Ramazzini (1530–1598), and an altarpiece of about the same size 'Golden Field' by Winfried Muthesius ( * 1957), which was created as part of a project in U- and S-Bahn stations for the Ecumenical Church Congress in 2003 and was installed behind the altar. ”In: Interior and furnishings of St. Canisius
  19. ↑ St. Matthew Foundation
  20. ↑ "I am grateful to Winfried Muthesius [...] [...] for this gifted perception of not being banned and paralyzed by break-ins, instead of grasping the possibilities of break-ins." Jürgen Lenssen . In: Winfried Muthesius. Breaks in time. Bonn 2014, p. 10.
  21. ↑ Friedhelm Mennekes : In conversation with Winfried Muthesius . In: W. Muthesius. Peinture. Painting. Painting. Münsterschwarzach 1990, pp. 32-38.
  22. ↑ See exhibition catalog for the exhibition Character Heads in the State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek, Munich, Kaiser Konstantin with Golden Field, illustration in: F. Knauß, C. Gliwitzky (ed.), Character Heads . Greeks and Romans in portrait , Munich 2017
  23. ↑ See the link to the pics4peace exhibition on the website of the Museum für Franken
  24. ↑ See link to newspaper article about the exhibition of the Golden Field in the Numismatic Museum
  25. ↑ See link to dpa video with information about the exhibition and the subsequent chainsaw action on Syntagma Square in Athens
  26. ↑ See YouTube video by Fairsteher, Markus Schollmeyer "Krass! Artist demonstrates with chainsaw for justice"
  27. ↑ See link to dpa video with information about the exhibition and the subsequent chainsaw action on Syntagma Square in Athens
  28. ↑ [1]
  29. ↑ See link to the solo exhibition "Genius Loci" in the Springer Gallery in Berlin
  30. ↑ See link to the art campaign "Free" in the Moabit Criminal Court, Berlin
  31. ↑ See audio comments on "free"
  32. ↑ Conceptual urban landscapes or a feast for the eyes. In: Winfried Muthesius - Brandenburg Gates . Berlin 1991, p. 9.
  33. ^ Goethe-Institut, curators from Germany
  34. ↑ Künstlerhaus Bethanien
  35. ↑ On Heavenly Light and Matter . In: Winfried Muthesius. STAR. Trier 2002, p. 7.
  36. ↑ In: Winfried Muthesius. The cross for the apse of St. Petri Lübeck . In: Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche , Lübeck 1992.
  37. ↑ In: Winfried Muthesius. The cross for the apse of St. Petri Lübeck . In: Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche , Lübeck 1992.
  38. ↑ In: "Color" Gold. Imagination of the sacred. In: Winfried Muthesius, Golden Fields - The sky below Berlin . Munster 2003.
  39. ↑ Evidence of the living . In: Winfried Muthesius. Time breaks . Bonn 2014, p. 22
personal data
SURNAME Muthesius, Winfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, photographer and installation artist
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin