Thomas Schütte: Faces and Figures, The Serpentine Gallery - review

In the first room of this show, a bust of a bearded man stares out at you from atop a steel plinth, his arms raised at the side of his head. Thomas Schütte, the German sculptor, says he reminded him of a Leonardo-like archetypal artist and called the work Memorial for Unknown Artist. He is a curious chap, a wise old sage yet somehow forlorn.

Schütte is not easily pinned down. One of a generation of sculptors who returned to figuration after the dominance of minimalism, he was taught by Gerhard Richter, and shares some of his attitude. But there is also a quirkiness, occasionally stretching into outright absurdity, to which Schütte repeatedly returns.

The show is sparely hung but rich in the dramatic mises-en-scene that are Schütte’s speciality, repeatedly joining his drawings’ intimacy with monumental sculptures. He captures multiple moods or registers, as in Memorial for Unknown Artist (2011), a bust of an ancient-looking man, to the Father State (2011), whose determined face is accompanied by a body seeming to shrivel beneath a tunic. Here, he seems to mock representations of power, a strategy which works well in Wichte (Jerks, 2006), a parade of bronze busts whose clumpiness, especially when describing a George Bush-like head, veers into satire.

Until Nov 18 (020 7402 6075, serpentinegallery.org)