Michael KREUTER (1940-2022) - Lot 1

Michael KREUTER (1940-2022) Throughout his artistic life, Michael Kreuter probed and studied the role of chance in creation, particularly through random painting. A man of reflection and meditation, Kreuter engages in painting as in philosophy, in search of meaning, limits and the interaction between movement, color and form. Kreuter sees painting as a speculative medium that can speak to the world, its reality and its prosaic poetry. The artistic gesture must serve to mark time, capture the instant or the unforeseen and fix emotion. He thus blends the randomness of rapid action on the canvas with color, often applied in an unconscious gesture, modulated by the momentum of the hand, the intensity of emotions and the interplay of these elements. Kreuter explores various media and techniques, painting on paper, glued, coated or assembled canvas, combining materials and supports. The artist also paints with the palm of the hand or the fingers, bare, in direct contact with the support, to leave no intermediary between the emotions and the artistic action. The works in this collection testify to an unusual artistic journey, starting with his first figurative works, evolving towards realism and then discovering abstraction and his random canvases where color and musicality dominate. Some of his works can also be traced back to an artistic period influenced by Pop Art and Hyper-realism in the 1970s and 1980s. Following this "Pop Art" period, Kreuter returned to more technical painting, moving closer to "Abstract Hyperrealism". In the 1980s, the painter broke with lines to make way for a freer, more unconventional composition. In his work, the artist suggests an ethical reflection on our world, showing the contradictions and errors of consumer society. Deconstructing images from a semantic and artistic point of view, the artist unveils his "Counter-World", that attempt at a dreamlike, sensitive world he would like to see emerge. In his writings, Kreuter states that one of his artistic ambitions is to "overcome the banality of the object by making it unrecognizable". In this way, the artist uses metaphor to underline the fragile, ephemeral nature of our existence. A few bibliographical references: -1940: Born in Stuttgart. -1959-1968: Studied art history in Stuttgart and Vienna, followed by further studies in Paris and Tübingen. -1965-1968: Starts a career as a set designer in Stuttgart, Ruetlingen and Tübingen. -1968: Begins a career at the Goethe Institute, where he teaches and works as a painter at the same time. He lived successively in Polling, Paris, Munich and Verona, before moving on to Lyon, Rotterdam and Warsaw. He exhibits regularly in Germany at the Botanical Gardens, at the Munich Fine Arts Fairs, at Wilheim.... in Italy in Verona and at the Goethe Institute in Rome. 1973: Birth of his daughter Delphine Kreuter, French photographer and film-maker. Exhibition: Michael Kreuter began exhibiting in 1998, coinciding with an exhibition by his daughter Delphine Kreuter: -1998: Galerie Netolitzki / von Brand, Munich -2000: Galerie Netolitzki / von Brand, Munich -2002: Cinema Ciak, Verona -2003: Goethe-Institut Rome - Citibank Rome -2004: Art Pavilion, former Munich Botanical Gardens -2007: New art fair, Munich House of Art -2008: Artist's first major exhibition at the Neuer Kunstsalon, Munich. -2009: Neuer Kunstsalon, Munich. -2010: Neuer Kunstsalon, Munich. Artists' Gallery (BBK), Munich. -2011: Mirabell Garden Gallery, Salzburg. Major exhibition at Kunstsalon Haus Der Kunst, Munich. -2013: Art exhibition at the Egyptian Museum, Munich. -2014: Artists' Gallery (BBK), Munich. -2015: Art exhibition at the Egyptian Museum, Munich. -2016: Michael Kreuter - Painting 1969 - 2016, Stadtmuseum Weilheim. -2020: Exhibition at Galerie Der Künstler, Munich.