Ohne Witz

Thomas Putze, born in 1968 in Augsburg, studied after an apprenticeship as a landscape gardener and theology at Wuppertal, worked as a freelance illustrator and musician, and from 1998 to 2003 pursued free sculpture at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart under Werner Pokorny and Micha Ullman. Since 2003, he has been living as a freelance sculptor with a studio in Stuttgart.

It is the outer and inner harmony of Thomas Putze's sculptures that captivates us and makes us pause. Not through a singular effect or everyday humor, but each time he surprises our perception and invites our participation.

The strangeness of the materials comes together to create a familiar yet idiosyncratic and innovative expression of form that sends palpable optimistic vibrations to the viewer. In their roughness—with edges and corners—they invite us to question critically.

"Without humor" in today's sense, as a brief amusing snapshot or folly. No, rather with humor in the sense of a "mental" ability to give the given form of the materials a new, intentional expression through a congenial combination. Accessible to "almost" every viewer, without taking away their freedom of individual perspective. Distinctly independent characters, open and authentic—true Thomas Putzes.