Nino Mier Gallery is thrilled to announce a series of three concurrent solo exhibitions by André Butzer (b. 1973 in Stuttgart, Germany) alongside a joint exhibition by Jayme Burtis (b. 1969 in Los Angeles, CA) and Butzer. Paintings and works on paper by Butzer will span Galleries 1, 2, and 4 at our West Hollywood locations from November 5, 2022 – January 7, 2023, while Burtis’ and Butzer’s double show will be on view in Glassell Park from November 6, 2022 – January 7, 2023.
The electrifying, large-scale paintings in Fränkische Tänze all feature iterations of Butzer’s iconic characters of the Woman, the Wanderer and the Friedens-Siemens, ever-evolving and present in his work since the late ’90s. In his recent paintings, they appear in single portraits, as floating heads and, once, as a cautious couple.
The consolation of opposing forces such as exploration and familiarity, loneliness and communion, despairing life and hopeful death animates Butzer’s artistic practice: the Woman is a kind of guiding star, pointing towards wholesomeness, the Wanderer incarnates grief, loss and the burden of history, whereas the Friedens-Siemens embodies the equalizing middle amid these extreme opposites.
Butzer, with enduring confidence in an inhospitable world, aligns the surrounding color fields with his figures and their individual chromatic fabric. Realized in simplicity and fullness, all is of the very same matter and sentiment. Colors and shapes, the figures and their surroundings echo each other. In coloristic unison, everything comes into appearance as one.
Butzer’s exhibition Fränkische Tänze pays homage to the seminal New Music piece of the same name by German composer Walter Zimmermann (b. 1949), known for his novel fusion of Franconian folk songs and post-Morton Feldman minimal techniques, of the local and the universal.
André Butzer was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1973 and lives in Berlin-Wannsee.
Institutional solo exhibitions include: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2023); Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen (2022); YUZ Museum, Shanghai, and Museum of the Light, Hokuto (2020); IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen (2018); Växjö Konsthall, Växjö (2017); Bayerisches Armeemuseum, Ingolstadt, and Neue Galerie Gladbeck (2016); Kunstverein Reutlingen (2015); Künstlerhaus – Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz (2014); Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, and Kunsthistorisches Museum / Theseustempel, Vienna (2011); Kunsthalle Nuremberg (2009); Kunstverein Ulm (2005); Kunstverein Heilbronn (2004).
Selected public collections include: Aurora Museum, Shanghai; Art Institute of Chicago; Carré d’Art, Nîmes; Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York; Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn; Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Faye G. Allen Centre for the Visual Arts, University of Washington, Seattle; Friedrichs Foundation, Weidingen / Bonn; Hall Art Foundation, Reading / VT | Derneburg; Hölderlinturm, Tübingen; IKOB Musée d’Art Contemporain, Eupen; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin State Museums, Berlin; LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Marciano Art Collection, Los Angeles; MARe Museum, Bucharest; MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Nationalgalerie / Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Rubell Museum, Miami; YUZ Museum, Shanghai.