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Reflections in a Pilfering Eye is the first solo exhibition in Portugal by the German painter Werner Büttner.

Büttner has been a crucial figure in German art since the early 1980s. Together with his early collaborators, Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen, he sought to upend the dominance of conceptual and minimal art through an unabashedly disruptive and disrespectful return to painting.  As Professor of Painting at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg from 1989 until 2021, he exerted a huge influence over generations of painters, including Daniel Richter and Jonathan Meese.

In 1979 Büttner took part in the now legendary exhibition Elend [Misery] at Kippenberger’s Büro, and in 1982 his work was included in Zeitgeist at Gropuisbau Berlin, which was considered a breakthrough exhibition for a new generation of artists of that time.  In 2013 Büttner was the subject of a major retrospective at ZKM, Karlsruhe, accompanied by a major monograph published by Hatje Cantz. A retrospective survey of Büttner’s work is currently on show at Yuz Museum, Shanghai.

Reflections in a Pilfering Eye offers an indirect reference to Carson McCullers´ Reflections in a Golden Eye, made famous in 1967 by John Huston’s film adaptation of the novel.  As always with Büttner´s traces, you can look for parallels, but ultimately he teaches us that you can’t always trust what you read, or what you see.  Nevertheless, the title does reveal a persistent trait in Büttner’s work – thieving, looting, pilfering.  It’s as if all culture is up for grabs.  He should not be able to get away with how he handles these eponymous immovable monuments, but Büttner has looked hard and read deeply. Far beyond artistic practices of appropriation, Büttner appears as the gentleman thief who always acts in plain sight. He pulls off a simultaneous analysis and skepticism over all that he surveys.

The selection of works in the exhibition revisits moments in cultural history from an inquisitive perspective.  As Büttner noted recently, “The parents of good pictures are other good pictures.”  And indeed, there is this endless pleasure in his work to tease out the references – from Tristram Shandy’s doodles, to Duchamp’s bottle rack as a crown of thorns.  Cumulatively, Büttner maps out more complex perspectives and obligations as to how a painter might paint today. Coming at it from all sides, in all genres, it’s an encounter of persistent attrition that somehow sustains what it critiques.

Equally, it’s important to emphasise that Büttner doesn’t make art about art, but rather the recognition that to look at art is an act of engagement.  And no-one looks harder.  Even at its most ironic, his work is an ethical activity. 

The exhibition has been curated by Professor Andrew Renton, who has collaborated with Büttner on several exhibitions, in addition to editing two major monographs in English on the artist.