Pavel Büchler on the work of artists

“I try to give a second chance to the failed paintings of other artists.”

Currently exhibiting in the Sainsbury Centre’s ‘Living by the Rule: Contemporary Meets Medieval’ show, Pavel Büchler is a UK-based artist, influential teacher and writer. Currently residing and working in Manchester, his career spans over five decades of subversive artistic practices. He describes his own work as “making nothing happen,” and finds inspiration in the transformative and impactful nature of art.

Büchler turns to art’s potential to highlight the obvious and shed new light on it to reveal its inherent strangeness.

In his series, From New Paintings (2016-20), three artists gave Büchler canvases that they considered failures. He scraped down their paint layers into tiny chips and particles, then reapplied them to each surface.

The titles of these ‘New Paintings’ derive from a 1957 manifesto by abstract artist Ad Reinhardt, ‘12 Rules for a New Academy’. Like Reinhardt, there is an absurdity in Büchler’s gesture. With humour, humility and useless labour, he gives rejected things a second life.

Discover Büchler’s work in our exhibition, as part of our What is the Meaning of Life? season, now until 4 October.