Michael Kutzner: Grill & Irrlicht

Michael Kutzner, born in Berlin in 1955, is an artist shaped by the experiences of his metropolis. Themes of vulnerability and exposure interest him just as much as the coldness and harshness of urban space, as well as the finitude of existence. His craftsmanship, development, and education are as much a part of Berlin as his conscious engagement with tradition and his urban repertoire.

Kutzner is an artist who works in seclusion, creating paintings and drawings that are aesthetic events of great evocative power. The focus is not primarily on what is depicted, but rather on its cultural ties to the status of transience. The internalization of the realization that "in the midst of life, we are surrounded by death" (Media vita in morte sumus) releases images in Kutzner's work where the secure intertwines with the precarious.

The melancholy that springs from Kutzner's diverse works is not pathological; it does not disturb, nor does it seek to be resolved or healed. It expresses the undeniable 'Conditio Humana,' which, when accepted, makes life more authentic and true. Time and again, black appears in Kutzner's works, shining like asphalt, dripping from tar machines—a sign of transience, of finitude as a possibility for renewal.

Michael Kutzner studied at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee and received numerous scholarships, including at Villa Serpentara, Villa Massimo, and Villa Romana. He lives and works in Berlin.