Werner Büttner's solo exhibition "He, Who Does Not Thrash Painting, Hates Painting!" will open on November 22

Gallery Dynamic

2025.11.19

EXHIBITION TITLE
He, Who Does Not Thrash Painting, Hates Painting!

ARTIST
Werner Büttner

CURATOR
Thomas Eller

DURATION
2025.11.22 - 12.22

VENUE
TRIUMPH GALLERY

Triumph Gallery is pleased to present “He, Who Does Not Thrash Painting, Hates Painting!”, a latest solo exhibition of German artist, Werner Büttner, from November 22 to December 22, 2025. Curated by Thomas Eller, this exhibition features over 20 major works, comprising a comprehensive overview of the artist’s prolific career spanning from 1979 to 2024, demonstrating the unique power of art as a tool for critique.

Born in Jena in 1954, Werner Büttner is a key figure in the German art scene of the late twentieth century. With his close friends, Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, he formed a strong presence, emerging in the late 1970s, projecting a sense of (sometimes dark) humor that was intended to shake up and invigorate an art scene steeped in rigid conceptualism. Their “joy of (bad) painting” became an inspiration for a new generation of artists and “electrified” a whole generation of younger painters, like Daniel Richter and Jonathan Meese, both his students.

Looking at Büttner’s paintings at first is a puzzling experience. He often uses metonymic strategies (exchanging one word/image for a similar one), or metaphors (exchanging one word/image for something else completely). In other words, images become shields of sorts, that protect and insulate the factual, or emotional core from the harshness of reality. This has become Büttner’s artistic methodology and visual language which he applies to all aspects of human life. There seem to be two reoccurring traits in his work, deep irony that cautions you to never believe in anything you see, and a deep desire to keep meaning alive, despite its obvious dangers. Werner Büttner is a believer, a believer in nothing. He sees the world and its references as a quarry of sorts, from where he receives the building blocks of his pictorial world, and he sees connections where no one else has looked.

Artists

Werner Büttner

Werner Büttner was born in 1954, Jena, Germany. He studied Law at Berlin Free University in 1973. He Moved to Hamburg in 1977, and worked with Georg Herold, Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen from 1977 to 1985. From 1989 to 2021, he was a Professor of Painting at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg. The artist currently lives and works in Geesthacht, Germany.

Werner Büttner's recent solo exhibitions include: He, Who Does Not Thrash Painting, Hates Painting!, Triumph Gallery, Beijing, 2025; Fool, Leaving the Shelter of Seclusion, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, 2025; Malerei 1981-2022, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, 2023; Werner Büttner, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, 2022; Analogies, Allegories and Metaphors of the Human Condition, Triumph Gallery, Beijing, 2022; Last Lecture Show, The Ranch, New York, 2022; Last Lecture Show, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburger, 2021; No Scene from My Studio, Simon Lee Gallery, London, 2021. Recent group exhibitions include: How’s my painting? Paintings from the Falckenberg Collection, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, 2025; Back then has always been now. Painting since 1947 reconsidered, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 2021; Works on paper 5, Max Weber Six Friedric, Munich, 2021; Büttner, Kippenberger & Oehlen: Trio Infernal, Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich, 2020; Der Goldene Reiter in Faustrecht der Freiheit aka Fox and His Friends, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 2020; Works on paper 4, Max Weber Six Friedric, Munich, 2020; Room enough for former teasers, Galerie Gisela Capitain, St. Apern Str., Cologne, 2020; Summer Exhibition, Marlborough Gallery, London, 2020; Works from the 1980s/Conceptual Photography, Marlborough Gallery, New York, 2020.

In addition, Büttner’s works are in many important collections, institutions and foundations, such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA; Cincinnati Art Museum, USA; FRAC Poitou- Charentes, France; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany; Mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria; Harvard Art Museum, USA; Pinakothek der Moderne, Germany, and many more.

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