‘Butzer’s colors reach far beyond the bare figures. Instead of mere colorfulness, he brings the image to a coherent wholeness or coloristic totality. Every boundary is equally a crossing. Each color, he places is not isolated but continuously related to the whole of the colored plane. In its potentiality, each new painting realizes the unity of these opposites and contrasts. Figures and colors combine to form a large animated motion, a motif that encompasses the entire image, creating spatiality and, at the same time, being a pure planar ornament. Butzer takes back the representational aspect in relation to the decorative character of the figures and thereby grants all appearances on the densely and tightly woven surface the same pictorial values.’
S. Krüger, ‘Peaches’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Miettinen Collection, Berlin; Berlin: DCV, 2024, pp. 46–47
‘Like Butzer's other figures, this childlike woman, sovereign on earth and in heaven, is still envisioned in a simple little dress, light as paper, and with large eyes full of sweetness, tenderness, a veil of bitterness and melancholic apprehension, all presented in a seemingly innocent way. Such childlike or grotesque figures, related to certain cartoons, may resemble ambiguous emoji or iconic characters that, with uninhibited expression and appearance, inhabit the brightly colored paintings and the various works on paper.’
S. Risaliti, ‘The Eternal Wanderer’, in André Butzer: Liebe, Glaube und Hoffnung, exh. cat., Florence: Museo Novecento, 2024
‘On the brink of this world and the beyond, the figure of the Woman resides in a tense state of vulnerable powerlessness and rigorous capability. Modest and benevolent, she could even be an icon of the Virgin Mary, re-uniting what is present and what is absent: Imprints of death and traces of the living.’
S. Krüger, ‘Peaches’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Miettinen Collection, Berlin; Berlin: DCV, 2024, p. 46
‘When Friedens-Siemens, the Wanderer, the Woman or even a little Cat come into appearance, figures and colors combine to form a large animated trait, a motif that encompasses the entire image, creating spatiality and, at the same time, being a pure planar ornament. Butzer takes back the representational aspect in relation to the decorative character of the group of figures. He grants all appearances on the densely and tightly woven surface the same pictorial values.’
S. Krüger, ‘Peaches’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Miettinen Collection, Berlin; Berlin: DCV, 2024, p. 46
‘You see a figure, standing mostly upright, in some kind of traditional folkloristic wondrous outfit. What is interesting about [Butzer’s ‘Wanderer’ figures] is they are all carrying a cane with them, even though this cane is seemingly detached from their hands or their bodies. Keeping in mind the historical aspect between a terrible past they have to deal with and an uncertain future, the function of the cane symbolises both a support, something that’s holding or keeping you up on that difficult or laborious way into the future, and maybe also a hint of redemption that says you can leave the past as it is, you have accepted it. You’ve carried it around for quote some time, but you don’t need the crutch you clung to, and maybe you can turn yourself towards a brighter future.’
C. Malycha, ‘Interview: Christian Malycha’, filmed on the occasion of André Butzer’s exhibition Wanderer at Galerie Max Hetzler, London, 2022
‘[André Butzer’s] characters are candid, innocent, with their white gloves, their radiant smiles and those big eyes …, so big that they become disturbing. To me, they look like Disney figures painted by Munch.’
G. Solana, ‘Conspiring with the paint’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 2023, p. 62
‘I refuse to say “black and white paintings”. I can’t even vocalise it. That sounds like graphic design. The very reverse is the case; there is no contrast and no design, no black and white. What I see is a sonorous whole. I never ponded on the horizontal-vertical and have neither black nor white on my mind. Those are dualist categories which I do not see. I see only colour.’
A. Butzer, ‘Their Place Is The Same Yet Another: André Butzer in conversation with Hendrik Lakeberg and Christian Malycha’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Kunstverein Reutlingen, Reutlingen; Pfullingen: Neske Verlag, 2016, n.p.
‘From the elementary relation between the horizontal and the vertical, Butzer has created a pictorial figure that inevitably reveals the finiteness as well as the possibilities of being in his so-called N-Paintings (2010–2017). In this tremendous condition of imageless immediacy, each of them is unique, unrepeatable, individual, constantly questioning our wavering stand in the world.’
S. Krüger, ‘Peaches’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Miettinen Collection, Berlin; Berlin: DCV, 2024, p. 47
‘Grey chasm backgrounds provide a primordial edifice where deeply engaging layered images emerge. Conceptual false geometry provides a seemingly jubilant celebration of painting, of color. There is a pace to the brushstroke, however it seems much more settled, deliberate, more peaceful than its predecessors (imagine Pollock sober, or Stella in a linen suit). Here we have a careful, evocative repetition of tone, but not function (an emotive quality not really seen since Rothko). Each painting is remarkably original while following an essentially consistent painterly pillar. Contrary to motif inspired artists, Butzer presents what feels like a new thought in each piece. As though the author of the canvas has just done this for the first time, again.’
T. A. McMichael III, ‘The Death of Recursion’, in André Butzer, exh. cat., Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler/Galerie Guido Baudach, 2009, n.p.
‘For him, these “grey” paintings are indispensable, especially in that they are invariably connected with an obtainment of clarity and with contemplation as to the nature of the pictorial means. As such, they allow the conceptual upheavals that counsel his paintings to be positively discernible. Butzer’s affirmation of his commitment toward the destruction of illusionistic representational pictorial means – in order to arrive, once and for all, at abstract pictures which do not simply imitate abstraction but are rather abstract from within themselves – is thus clear (with pictures such as Mörder, moving onward toward the Friedens-Siemense to the Haselnuß paintings and all the way up to the present subsequent abstract pictures) from the outset – so that solely the picture as motif – as pictorial motif – is allowed to remain an all-encompassing picture-motif.’
C. Malycha, in André Butzer: Der wahrscheinlich beste abstrakte Maler der Welt, exh. cat., kestnergesellschaft, Hannover; Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2011, p. 82
‘Commenting on the primitive nature of “civilized” society and its contradictions with naïve amazement at the spectacle, André Butzer’s Nasaheim is an earlier series about the inhabitants of a fabled town where Disney meets its science fiction doppelgangers. NASA is the acronym for the famous space agency, Anaheim is the home of that American utopia called Disney World (“it's a small world after all!”) located in the mid-sized Californian municipality of the same name with a population estimated to reach 400,000 by 2014. It is this notion of urban systems and social structures that pervades the work of André Butzer; as if tuning in to the dictum of our collective unconscious he consorts with his own psyche to paint these palimpsest pictures of egregious man conscious with the knowledge of his generations history intact.’
M. Henry, 'Butzer’s Cave’, in Viele Tote im Heimatland: Fanta, Sprite, H-Milch, Micky und Donald!, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg; Bielefeld/Leipzig: Kerber Verlag, 2009, p. 42
‘Dedicated to four [...] German architects who were active in the gap between murderous ideology and the exalted claims of art are pictures upon whose gray ground, interrupted by only a few black or white spots, is respectively inscribed in black a single name. [...] These abstract, tumultuous pictures open up an empty space that can be approached only through the notions or memories associated with each individual name.’
C. Malycha, ‘Hazelnut’, in Being and Image: André Butzer 1994–2014, Berlin: Kerber Verlag, 2018, p. 144
‘Thus, no catastrophe seems really able to destroy the fundamental patterns in André Butzer’s imagery; which is why the answer to the question whether this is about abstraction is actually no. Blackening out or the use of another perspective on a subject which per se already has no stable existence (like the beings with balloon-like heads) is not synonymous with any false emancipation of purely picturesque or purely painterly means. Darkening and emptying is illustrated here as the drama of a real or artificial existence or rather left unresolved as a touching and powerfully painted question – the question as to what man is made of, whether his materialisation tragically already heralds the start of his decline and what, if anything, contributes or might contribute to the preservation of his species.’
T. Groetz, ‘In the Latrines’, in Butzer: Haselnuß, exh. cat., Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin; Berlin: Verlag H+K, 2005, p. 23
‘On Butzer’s painting, Hölderlin “comes out of the light searching for a pharmacy here on earth, because up where he’s from painkillers and suntan lotions have run short.” It’s this hope for relief and protection “that art generally wants to express.” According to Butzer, Hölderlin articulates “desires just like Disney does and that’s something to utilize.” For him, Hölderlin’s poetry becomes a kind of pharmacy, in which remedies and aid can be found for the painterly reconciliation of the world’s contradictory extremes. Butzer imagines his own history, in which painting is bound to equal a “dream of complete deliverance.”’
S. Potsch, ed., André Butzer, Hölderlin Apotheke usw., Hölderlinturm Tübingen, Heidelberg: Edition Linn, 2020
‘André Butzer – gently, in large formats, taking recognizable figures like those in comic strips and using colour as a signal – approaches the medium of Pop Art and in this way formulates his own historical consciousness, his objection to a logic of progress, according to which the art of the Sixties is supposed to have totally devoured all its predecessors, an objection which is in tune with the answer which Philip Guston gave his contemporaries in 1970. André Butzer actualizes his work, but not only in the history of art or in some context that is substantiated there, he also wants to get to the societal meanings that are inscribed in Pop [...]. This tension comes out especially clearly in the new oil paintings, but the range of themes and techniques in Pop have interested him for a long time, the possibility of slipping into the skin of painting and appearing with the effect Pop Art.’
R. Ohrt, ‘Dangerous Game’, in André Butzer: Das Ende vom Friedens-Siemens Menschentraum, exh. cat., Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn; Cologne: Snoeck, 2004, p. 13
‘The universe theme also illustrates what moment in time is marked by the so-called abstract paintings in the artist’s work. Here we are possibly dealing with the night-time, rear or inner side of the cheerfully coloured, bucolic imagery that normally features funny folk making their entrance. Eternal twilight has fallen in the land of the Friedens-Siemense and H-Menschen and sometimes you think in the almost no longer existent light, in the rays of the darkened sun, that you can discern patterns of blind facial landscapes with their sculpted oval eyes and their rivulets beneath, which you can identify as the once so innocently smiling mouths of the Friedens-Siemense.’
T. Groetz, ‘In the Latrines’, in Butzer: Haselnuß, exh. cat., Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin; Berlin: Verlag H+K, 2005, p. 23
All works: © André Butzer