Model for a Museum 1982 (Modell für ein Museum 1982) from Architecture Models 1980-2006 (Architektur Modelle 1980-2006)
Thomas Schütte
German, born 1954
2006
A single print from Thomas Schütte’s portfolio that renders a small sculptural maquette of a hypothetical museum as an etching and nyloprint with letterpress additions, aiming to present architecture as an intimate, imagined object rather than a finished monument.
A pared-down, blocky structure — a low trapezoidal base topped by a narrow tower — appears in fragile brown, sketchlike lines on a warm, stained field and sits low on the wide sheet with a tiny blue title beneath, making the proposed building feel both modest and oddly vulnerable.
By circulating tiny, handlike ‘models’ as prints, Schütte collapses sculpture, architectural drawing, and text to question monumentality and institutions, helping open contemporary art toward architectural speculation and institutional critique.
Medium
One from a portfolio of 27 etching and nyloprints with letterpress additions
Dimensions
plate: 11 x 15 13/16" (28 x 40.1 cm); sheet: 30 1/16 x 21" (76.4 x 53.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
General Print Fund
Accession
301.2011.7
Palette
Exhibitions