DUSSELDORF.- From November 14, 2026, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen will host a comprehensive solo exhibition dedicated to the internationally renowned, Düsseldorf-based artist Thomas Schütte (b. 1954). Organized in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition pays tribute to an oeuvre that has been a defining position in international contemporary art for five decades. Following the highly acclaimed exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Punta della Dogana (Pinault Collection) in Venice, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is making a further significant contribution to the exploration of Schütte's multifaceted work. Alongside his well-known sculptures such as Vater Staat (Father State) and Mutter Erde (Mother Earth), the exhibition will present Schütte's architectural models, offering, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of this central group of works. Spanning the entire K21 building, the exhibition will offer a new engagement with K21's spaces and historic architecture.

For Susanne Gaensheimer, Thomas Schütte is one of the most significant and influential sculptors of his generation: "Whether he is shaping a piece of clay, working with glass, or designing an entire space, the result is a great work of art. His works are extremely diverse and possess tremendous power and depth. Coupled with insight and, at times, irony, they offer a profound commentary on human life and coexistence," says the director of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Thomas Schütte: "I'm really only interested in spaces. The sculptures are the protagonists. They stand there, have a life of their own—hopefully—and have their own aura." (Interview with Julia Wallner, November 30, 2021)

Focusing on Schütte's architectural models created since the 1980s, as well as on his more recent sculptural works in bronze, steel, ceramics, and glass, the exhibition at K21 aims to situate his current practice within a fundamental reflection on space as an artistic medium. It offers an overview of the key areas of Schütte's artistic practice and introduces visitors to one of the most important contemporary sculptors. It is the first museum-based survey of his work in Germany in fifteen years.

Thomas Schütte was born in Oldenburg in 1954. From 1973 to 1981, he studied under Fritz Schwegler and Gerhard Richter at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. In 1981, he exhibited his first architectural models at the Westkunst exhibition in the Cologne trade fair halls, curated by Laszlo Glozer and Kasper König. In 1984, he participated in the exhibition Von hier aus – zwei Monate neue deutsche Kunst in Düsseldorf, organized by Kasper König. He also participated in the documenta in Kassel in 1987, 1992, and 1997. In 2005, he was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the Venice Biennale.

Artistically socialized within a context of minimalist and conceptual trends, Schütte began early on to engage critically with the prevailing art movements of his time. In particular, he introduced narrative elements and took an interest in the social role of art, architecture, and design. From the very beginning, space itself was the central compositional element. This begins with his early wallpaper, faux brick wall works, and wall pieces with wooden rings and continues through his architectural models to his autonomous sculptures, which always relate to the surrounding space and enter into a calculated interplay with it.

By focusing on models, paintings, watercolors, and textile works on the one hand, and more recent sculptural works on the other, the exhibition exemplifies how Schütte imbues the space with forms, gestures, and emotions, transforming the museum into an accessible total installation.

Vater Staat (Father State) and Mutter Erde (Mother Earth): Thomas Schütte's larger-than-life figures

Upon entering the museum, visitors are greeted by two larger-than-life figures in bronze and steel: Mutter Erde (2024) and Vater Staat (2010). Here, Schütte draws on the tradition of monumental sculpture for state representation, a tradition that had almost been forgotten in post-war modernism. However, Vater Staat has no arms, and Mutter Erde stands on a plinth from which she clearly longs to escape. Schütte is known for taking elements from tradition and modernism, reworking them and presenting them for discussion in the present day. His work hovers within an ambivalent, at times ironically fractured triangle between tradition, modernism, and the present. In the exhibition, we stand between two otherworldly, large yet fractured personifications: on the one hand, state power; on the other, the Earth as a force of nature. As humans, we are part of nature, which has always been there, and at the same time part of the state and social fabric that we ourselves have created.

A Model for K21

On the lower level, the exhibition focuses on Thomas Schütte's architectural models across an area of over 1,000 m². These models constitute a distinct body of work that the artist has been continuously developing since the beginning of his career, and which stands independently alongside his sculptural and installation works. Making models does not merely mean giving the imagination a helping hand. Models are also tools for gaining insight and play a central role in the experimental set-ups of the sciences.

In Thomas Schütte's models, one can discern proposals for how we might live in both public and private spaces. With a touch of humor, these proposals reflect the reality of our society and offer a commentary on it that is at times biting. Created in 1982, the Modell für ein Museum is based on the architecture of a French combined heat and power plant, featuring a striking central chimney. Does this institution burn art rather than preserve it? Or is the museum a machine that releases cultural energy by destroying works of art? Tanke Deutschland (Gas Station Germany) is the title of a model made of yellow Plexiglas from 2002. It imagines the gas station as the center of the nation, around which everything revolves, and as a social space where everyone meets.

Schütte's models stimulate the imagination. They serve as frameworks for reflection and partake in a free interplay of form and function, as in the One Man Houses. These are based on a single design, the character and functionality of which change radically simply through a change in location. Schütte provides a scale for most of the models. However, as an artist who is always concerned with immediate expression, he often uses toy figures to illustrate the dimensions. Alternatively, he combines the models with paintings and drawings to suggest size and function. The exhibition on the K21 dome offers a special experience, featuring several architectural designs installed as accessible, 1:1 scale models.

The architectural models demonstrate how Schütte imagines spaces, sometimes employing the simplest of means but with visionary consistency. His sculptures, too, are responses to spatial conditions. As autonomous positings, they incorporate their surroundings in such a way that these become part of the work itself. Leaving the lower level with its models on a wide variety of scales and reentering the piazza with its larger-than-life sculptures, one may even get the impression that the K21 itself thereby becomes a model.

Finally, on the second floor, the museum's so-called 'bel étage', visitors can experience how Schütte works with a wide variety of materials, such as modelling clay, wood, glazed ceramics, glass, and traditional bronze casting. Here, figures, objects, and works on paper will be on display in the light-filled rooms overlooking the Kaiserteich.

Curator: Falk Wolf