Winfried Muthesius
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Winfried Muthesius (born 28 August 1957 in Berlin) is a German
painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...
,
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...
and
installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...
ist.


Life

Muthesius' great-grand uncle and aunt were German architect
Hermann Muthesius Adam Gottlieb Hermann Muthesius (20 April 1861 – 29 October 1927), known as Hermann Muthesius, was a German architect, author and diplomat, perhaps best known for promoting many of the ideas of the English Arts and Crafts movement within German ...
and fashion designer
Anna Muthesius Anna Muthesius born Anna Trippenbach (8 December 1870 – 30 March 1961) was a German fashion designer, concert singer, and author from Aschersleben. Life She was born Anna Trippenbach in 1870. In concert with Paul Schultze-Naumburg and Henry ...
. Since the 2001 death of his wife, Marianne Muthesius, he has owned a real-estate company. Muthesius is the father of Laura Muthesius (born 22 February 1990), a blogger and photographer. He lives and works in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
and
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
.


Artistic work

Muthesius studied at the Berlin School of Arts (today the
Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the second largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research uni ...
) from 1979 to 1984. He was a student of , whose designs influenced him. Muthesius' first artistic stay abroad led him to the
Accademia di Belle Arti This is a list of the tertiary-level schools or academies of fine art in Italy that are recognised by the Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, the Italian ministry of higher education. Accademie di Belle Arti The of ...
in Florence in 1982–83. His work there focused on the city's architecture. Based on many sketches, Muthesius created his first works in
Indian ink India ink (British English: Indian ink; also Chinese ink) is a simple black or coloured ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing and outlining, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. In ...
,
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
,
tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. ''Tempera'' also refers to the paintings done in ...
and
oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...
. In 1982, he made the
Brandenburg Gate The Brandenburg Gate ( ) is an 18th-century Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical monument in Berlin. One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was erected on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin t ...
in his home city of
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
a motif in his works. These works demonstrate that Muthesius employs design through reduction, laying down the foundation of his present painting style. He received a working scholarship to the in 1987, and a series of
Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...
pictures dates to this time. In 1988 he visited
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
for the first time, and has returned regularly ever since. In New York, Muthesius sketched soaring room perspectives and architectural highlights, particularly of the
World Trade Center World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...
. In the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, he has been creating work relating to
Ground Zero A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its p ...
. When he received a working scholarship from the Berlin Senate in 1989, he continued using the Brandenburg Gate—the intersection of East and West—as his central motif. Muthesius' first series of "cross pictures" and "skull pictures" date to 1991 and 1992, and he has continued them until the present. He began to develop the technique of '' pittura oscura'' in 1992. These are multi-layered pictures which give the effect of depth, combining photography and painting: Muthesius creates a painting, derived from a sketch. It is then positioned in a public room and photographed. The photograph is painted over, and again reproduced. The ''Star'' series of large-format images was created in 1995. The subject of the ''Star'' and ''Cross'' series is violence in the past and present.
Stars of David The Star of David (, , ) is a symbol generally recognized as representing both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the Seal of Solomon was used for decora ...
, beaten in with an axe and a chainsaw, explore the expulsion of the
Jewish communities Jewish ethnic divisions refer to many distinctive communities within the world's Jewish population. Although "Jewish" is considered an ethnicity itself, there are distinct ethnic subdivisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the result o ...
over the centuries as a reminder of the need for respect. In the ''Cross'' pictures, Muthesius dissolves the static cross and creates an impression of movement. The crosses were applied with
bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...
and oil on a large-format support made of wood. Muthesius has focused to
monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, mon ...
images in gold, such as the ''Golden Fields'' (the ''tabula aurea'' in the State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek,
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
) and ''Der Himmel unter Berlin'', since 2002. From this, he developed a "broken gold" technique. The support, decorated with
gold leaf upA gold nugget of 5 mm (0.2 in) in diameter (bottom) can be expanded through hammering into a gold foil of about 0.5 m2 (5.4 sq ft). The Japan.html" ;"title="Toi gold mine museum, Japan">Toi gold mine museum, Japan. Gold leaf is gold that has ...
, is then partially destroyed and scratched on the surface. This illustrates brittleness and vulnerability in time. Muthesius is inspired by the concrete forms in a room, which he outlines, paints, photographs, paints over, further processes, installs and places in new contexts. He intends to bring the observer into a conflict of perception which might alter their perspectives and views. Muthesius' starting point is an object whose core he reveals with a variety of techniques and reductions in several processes.


Analysis

According to , "The Skull pictures by Muthesius directly refer back to life 'In the serious ossuary' (Goethe) ... "a source of life arose from death. wrote about ''Brandenburg Gates'': wrote about ''Star'': Thomas A. Baltrock wrote about ''Cross'': wrote about ''Golden Fields'': Christoph Tannert wrote about ''Pittura Oscura'':''Äußerungsbeweise des Lebendigen''. In: ''Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche.'' Bonn 2014, p. 22


References


Bibliography

* ''Winfried Muthesius. Berlin-Bilder.'' Berlin 1985. * ''Winfried Muthesius. Peinture.'' M.P.M. Project Bastille, Paris 1988. * ''Live Kunst: with Frank Dornseif and Winfried Muthesius from the Martin-Gropius-Bau.''
ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...
1989 * (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. Peinture – Painting – Malerei.'' Münsterschwarzach 1990 (exhibition catalog in Paris, Cologne, Berlin, New York). * Gallery vier (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. Brandenburger Tore.'' Berlin 1991 (catalog of the exhibition in Leverkusen, Cologne, Berlin and Paris). * Thomas A. Baltrock (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche.'' Lübeck 1992. * (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. hell Schützenhofbunker. Eine Installation von Winfried Muthesius.'' Münster 1994. * Deutsche Gesellschaft für christliche Kunst (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche – unentwegte Kreuzwege.'' Munich 1995. * Thomas Sternberg (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. Himmel, Malerei.'' Münster 2001. * ''Winfried Muthesius. Stern.'' Berlin, Trier 2002 (catalog of the exhibition in Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum Trier, in cooperation with Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin, and the Stiftung St. Matthäus). * ''Winfried Muthesius. Golden Fields – Der Himmel unter Berlin.'' Münster 2003 (catalog of the exhibition in Berlin underground stations as part of the Ecumenical Church Day in Berlin). * (ed.): ''Winfried Muthesius. ZeitBrüche.'' Bonn 2014.


External links


Literature on Winfried Muthesius
in the catalog of the
German National Library The German National Library (DNB; ) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to collect, permanently archive, comprehens ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muthesius, Winfried 1957 births Living people German contemporary artists German male painters 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists Painters from Berlin 21st-century German painters 21st-century German male artists Berlin University of the Arts alumni