Werner Büttner (1954) - Wo Man Ist, Da Ist Kaff

Werner Büttner
Where there's a man, there's coffee, 1990
Two-color linocut on Yearling board 250 g
50 x 37 cm
22nd edition
Signed and numbered on the front.
including frame

“We wanted to paint, because painting was forbidden back then.” This is how Werner Büttner recently recalled his artistic beginnings in a conversation with gallerist Bruno Brunnet. Painting, described as an “abgelutschtes bürgerliches Medium” (a worn-out bourgeois medium), had been stigmatized at the end of the 1970s. That alone was already a rebellious act. Büttner, born in 1954 in Jena and relocated to West Germany before the building of the Wall, and his close ally Albert Oehlen nonetheless attracted attention very quickly, initially with self-organized exhibitions—together with Martin Kippenberger—in Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf. The latter show took place in Jörg Immendorff’s studio—one of those who painted like them. Gallerist Max Hetzler supported Büttner early on. The exhibitions “Zeitgeist” (1982) at the Berliner Martin-Gropius-Bau and “Wahrheit ist Arbeit” (1984) at the Essen Folkwang Museum made him nationally known and also aroused interest in the art market.
Büttner has been a professor at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts since 1989. His works are represented in numerous collections such as the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the ZKM Karlsruhe, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, and the Falckenberg Collection in Hamburg.

As “Blattern,” the title of a series of linocuts by Werner Büttner, appeared in 1990, an exciting, rebellious, draining time for the painter came to an end. Together with Albert Oehlen, but also with colleagues like Martin Kippenberger and Georg Herold, he had shaken up the art world properly at the end of the 70s and during the 80s.
"Wherever you are, there’s the backwater," "Homage to one's own fish soup," "Your brain in your arms, thus" – from the captions to the visually reduced, impactful motifs speaks the irony with which Büttner and his 'band' confronted the world and the certainty of self within it. Often sarcastically heightened to the point of taboo. The textual level accompanies many of Büttner’s works. He preferred "the aphoristic, the riddle-speech, the small, poetic thicket," the artist has said about himself. The scope for interpretation is thus wide. And there is no doubt that one can still be drawn into thought-experiments by Büttner’s creations today.