Paul Schütze (born 1 May 1958) is an Australian artist resident in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. Over thirty years his work has spanned composition, performance, installation, video, printmaking and photography.
Biography
Schütze was born in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. He spent his childhood painting and drawing but left Caulfield Institute after only two months of an Arts Foundation Course to work in a factory. There he earned the money to buy his first electronic musical equipment. In 1979 he spent several months travelling and ended up in London where he immersed himself in concerts, museums and galleries. Returning to Melbourne he formed the improvising group Laughing Hands with Gordon Harvey, Ian Russell and Paul Widdicombe.
The group existed in several forms until disbanding in 1982.
Schütze spent the next decade writing scores for films. His first feature soundtrack, ''The Tale of Ruby Rose'' (1987), won the
Australian Film Institute Award for Best original Music Score. During this period Schütze lectured on film sound at both
Swinburne Institute and
AFTRS and worked as a film critic both in print and on national radio.
In collaboration with Michael Trudgeon, Anthony Kitchener and Dominic Lowe, Schütze curated and featured in ''Deus Ex Machina'', an exhibition-publication at
Monash University
Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...
in 1989. This was to be his first sound installation and subsequently his first solo album.
In 1992, Schütze re-located to London during a period of particular fertility in the independent music scene, and he released nearly thirty albums of original works over the next decade. Schütze contributed writings to ''
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...
'', and performed his music in Europe, Scandinavia and Japan, often with regular collaborator Simon Hopkins. In 1996, he formed improvising super-group Phantom City with
Bill Laswell
William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, wo ...
,
Raoul Björkenheim
Raoul Melvin Björkenheim (born February 11, 1956) is a Finnish-American jazz guitarist, who has lived in Helsinki, New York, and Los Angeles.
His mother is Finnish-American actress Taina Elg.''Finlands ridderskaps och adels kalender 1992'', pp ...
, Dirk Wachtelaer at its core, with
Alex Buess,
Toshinori Kondo,
Lol Coxhill and
Jah Wobble
John Joseph Wardle (born 11 August 1958), known by the stage name Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; ...
as guest collaborators.
In 2000, Schütze was invited to exhibit in Sonic Boom at the
Hayward Gallery
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Royal ...
London by curator
David Toop. The same year he received a large commission for a permanent installation work for
Cap Gemini and a second for a massive twenty-two screen audio-video work at the
Gasometer in Oberhausen, Germany. He also contributed a sound work to
James Turrell
James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. He is considered the "master of light" often creating art installations that mix natural light with artificial color through openings ...
's Eclipse event/publication in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
.
In 2002, Schütze began working with
Alan Cristea Gallery London. In 2003, his first solo show, ''Vertical Memory'', opened at ACG. The show included prints, video, sound and a huge wall work in which the whole of
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the ''Nouveau Roman'' () trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simo ...
's novel ''Topology of A Phantom City'', was rendered as a continuous plane of silver text. In 2004, Stiftelsen 314 in
Bergen, Norway mounted his solo show ''Garden of Instruments''. This was the next stage in a large-scale project that began in 1997 with the release of Schutze's spoken architectural opera ''Second Site'' and continued with a series of lightboxes for ACG also in 2004. This project, which is still ongoing, now has its own site.
In 2006, Schütze began to work with Galleria Estiarte in Madrid showing prints, videos and lightboxes. His work is also shown at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London. Following Schütze's two residencies at
Cité des Arts in Paris making photographs, a solo show of photography – ''Twilight Science'' – opened in London at Alan Cristea Gallery in May 2008.
An ongoing commission (initiated in 1999) to make a sound work for James Turrell's
Roden Crater has involved several research trips and has now been completed as a five-hour installation piece in
Dolby Surround.
In 2011, Schütze launched dressingtheair.com,
an open access online platform for multisensory creativity.
Discography
Studio albums
* ''
Deus Ex Machina
''Deus ex machina'' ( ; ; plural: ''dei ex machina''; 'God from the machine') is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function is general ...
'' (1989)
* ''
The Annihilating Angel; Or, The Surface of the World'' (1990)
* ''
New Maps of Hell'' (1992)
* ''New Maps of Hell II:
The Rapture of Metals'' (1993)
* ''
The Surgery of Touch'' (1994)
* ''
Apart'' (1995)
* ''
Abysmal Evenings'' (1996)
* ''
Nine Songs From the Garden of Welcome Lies'' (1997)
* ''Second Site: 27°37'35" N 77°13'05" E'' (1997)
* ''Stateless'' (1997) Schütze's contribution to ''Driftworks''
* ''Third Site'' (1999)
* ''The Gazing Engine'' (1999)
* ''Writing on Water: Twenty-two Dreams Recalled'' (2001)
* ''Seven Degrees Live'' (2002)
* ''Plasma Falls'' (2002)
* ''Dressing The Air'' (2002)
* ''The Sky Torn Apart'' (2018)
Released under a pseudonym
* ''
More Beautiful Human Life!'' (1994) as Uzect Plaush
* ''
Vertical Memory'' (1995) as Seed
Soundtrack albums
* ''
Regard: Music by Film'' (1991)
* ''
Isabelle Eberhardt: The Oblivion Seeker'' (1994)
Collaboration albums
* ''Narratives: Music for Fiction'' (1996) with
Voice of Eye &
Robert Rich
* ''
Site Anubis'' (1996) with Phantom City
* ''
Fell
A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of M ...
'' (1996) with
Andrew Hulme
* ''The Ulm Concert'' (1997) with Simon Hopkins
* ''
Shiva Recoil: Live/Unlive'' (1997) with Phantom City
* ''Driftworks'' (1997) with
Thomas Koner, Nijiumu,
Pauline Oliveros &
Randy Raine-Reusch
* ''Soundwork 01'' (2009) with
Andrew Hulme
* ''Third Site Live'' (2010) with
Raoul Bjorkenheim, Simon Hopkins &
Clive Bell
* ''Live Horbar-Hamburg Dec 2009'' (2010) with Simon Hopkins
Compilation albums
* ''Green Evil: Stray Particles 1982-1996'' (1998)
* ''
Sound Paintings'' (1998)
References
External links
Paul Schütze home pagePaul Schütze - Alan Cristea Gallery Garden of Instruments websiteDiscogs listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schutze, Paul
1958 births
Australian musicians
Australian photographers
Extreme Records artists
Living people
Virgin Records artists