{"id":224,"date":"2008-04-18T22:05:05","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T22:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/?p=224"},"modified":"2008-10-25T22:09:39","modified_gmt":"2008-10-25T22:09:39","slug":"andre-butzer-at-metro-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/18\/andre-butzer-at-metro-pictures\/","title":{"rendered":"Andre Butzer at Metro Pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"

For ‘Time Out New York’ Magazine
\n

\"Andre<\/a>
Andre Butzer, Untitled, 2007, Courtesy of Metro Pictures Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOn a recent weekday, the traffic at Andre Butzer\u2019s first New York solo show flowed in and quickly back out as skeptical visitors encountered the young German painter\u2019s garish, Expressionist renderings of cartoony characters.\u00a0 Butzer\u2019s brightly colored, monumental canvases are an amusing finger in the eye of prevailing taste \u2013 the \u2018lessness\u2019 exemplified in the Whitney Biennial – but their role as harbinger of a sea-change in art world fashion is greater than their value as art.
\n\u00a0
\nIn the first gallery, four huge portraits of Euro-American pop-culture hybrids sport Mickey Mouse gloves and faces resembling cartoons, SS death heads and Munch\u2019s screamer, though none are particularly amusing or menacing.\u00a0 Phallic projections in place of arms recall Caroll Dunham\u2019s grotesque, penis-nosed characters but without the mystery, while the figures suggest the kitschy colors of Kenny Scharf but not his surreal creativity.
\n\u00a0
\nAmong his own generation of painters, Butzer evinces stylistic similarities to Jonathan Meese\u2019s colorful impasto canvases and Bjarne Melgaard\u2019s messily rendered quasi-humans.\u00a0 But while their free manner with paint is accompanied by developed, albeit personal storylines; Butzer\u2019s deadpan, recurring characters dangle the potential for narrative in front of their audience without really delivering.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nThe worst culprit is \u2018Viele Tote in Heimatland:\u00a0 Fanta, Sprite, H-Milch, Mickey and Donald!\u2019 a nearly thirty foot long canvas arranged with spectral heads surrounded by thin layers of splashed and slapped on paint.\u00a0 Despite the title\u2019s suggestion of a German-American cultural mash-up, Butzer\u2019s ambition to cover that much yardage trumps his ability to come up with appropriately tour de force subject matter, making for a disappointingly flashy debut without much substance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For ‘Time Out New York’ Magazine On a recent weekday, the traffic at Andre Butzer\u2019s first New York solo show flowed in and quickly back out as skeptical visitors encountered the young German painter\u2019s garish, Expressionist renderings of cartoony characters.\u00a0 Butzer\u2019s brightly colored, monumental canvases are an amusing finger in the eye of prevailing taste … <\/p>\n

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