Drawing on post-war architecture in Germany and transforming the language of public architecture, Thomas Schütte changes his view of our age and places architectural models on table-stands, raising them to the rank of monuments to our civilization. As architectural metaphors, they constitute an allegory of his view of the world.

Through his “diary of the world” under the form of architectural models Schütte plays and bitterly comments on contemporary society and on the mechanisms that make it work both politically and culturally.

Museum as crematory oven, modernism interpreted as a form of terrorism, menacing temples and Houses for one person – simultaneously retreat and prison.

In the past years some of the models have been turned into real buildings, thanks to the interest of private persons which use them as spaces for living.
A portfolio of 27 prints documenting more than 30 years of the artist's work on public architecture accompanies the visit of the exhibition which will pass along the models of the One Man Houses, a film on the construction of the Ferienhaus in Austria and finally new projects never shown before like the monumental Sculpture Hall which will host Schütte’s private collection of his own works

Two catalogues, Houses and Frauen, with critical essays by the two curators, Andrea Bellini and Dieter Schwarz, are published by Richter & Fey and the NMNM on the occasion of the exhibitions. Houses will be available in September 2012.  

​words and images from:
http://www.nmnm.mc/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=106:thomas-schütte-houses&Itemid=303&lang=en

Published on Nov 11, 2014'Organs of the Outlandish: Contemporary Art and Mimetic Excess'

Lecture delivered by Camberwell College of Arts Practitioner in Residence Hal Foster.

Foster is Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, USA and is one of the leading voices in post‐modern art criticism and critical art history, 

Foster is the author of numerous acclaimed theory books, including Compulsive Beauty, Return of the Real, Design and Crime (And Other Diatribes), Prosthetic Gods, and The Art‐Architecture Complex. His contributions to contemporary cultural debates span over 30 years of publishing.

Dan Sturgis - Camberwell Fine Art Programme director and BA Painting Course Director:

"Foster’s appointment as Camberwell's Practitioner in Residence will complement and enhance our contextual studies delivery, which focuses on the way that “ideas” are held in the making process and how both art historical reflection and the contemporary world inhabit today’s artworks.”