German artist Thomas Schütte makes sculpture which varies from giant, candy-coloured cherries to miniature castles. He manipulates size and materials like a master juggler, inventing familiar yet uncanny scenarios. Like Gulliver we wander through his bizarre worlds of shifting scale, a universe replete with food and shelter yet full of false promise: a museum that incinerates art, bronze potatoes, or his very own ‘audience’, made up of metal-clad robots assembled before his work. Schütte has also constructed a series of architectural models of institutions and monuments; their eclectic array of building typologies suggests de Chirico-like metaphysical spaces.
Schütte’s sculpture, installation, photographs and watercolours have been exhibited worldwide; he has also made public commissions throughout Europe. This book accompanied the first major survey of his work in Britain, presented at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1998 and touring to the De Pont Foundation in Tilburg, the Netherlands, and the Fundaçâo de Serralves in Porto, Portugal.