Thomas Schütte

thomas schütte

Thomas Schütte

    Since the late 1970s—when he studied with renowned German artist Gerhard Richter—Thomas Schütte has been subverting traditional art historical genres through his eclectic output of sculptures, prints, installations, drawings, watercolors, and photographs. Schütte makes familiar forms of expression, like memorial portraiture and figurative sculpture, strange through evocative, often disturbing alterations, such as in his treatment of the female nude in his “Bronzefrauen” series (Bronze Women, 1999-ongoing) where figurative shapes morph into abstract or mutant forms, or his “Alte Freunde” series, in which the subjects’ despondent expressions highlight the vulnerability of the individual against the cruelty and complexity of the vast world. Through his work he explores the human condition, offering a critical perspective on social, cultural, and political issues and visually eloquent commentary on memory, loss, and the difficulty of memorializing the past.

    On a visit to the Konrad Fischer Galerie in 2016, Rolf Fehlbaum discovered the model of a log cabin conceived by Thomas Schütte. Fascinated by the structure, Fehlbaum asked the artist if he could imagine a full-scale realisation of the project on the Vitra Campus. In 2018, the Blockhaus became the newest building on the company premises, forming a contrast to the architectural works by other figures. On the occasion of the official opening, the artist Thomas Schütte offered insights into his work.

    The Blockhaus is a hybrid structure – both object and functional space – and the first architectural work on the Vitra Campus that was created by an artist. How does this project diverge from the approach and implementation of other buildings on the premises?

    ”I think the main difference is that I didn’t have to fulfil any expectations. If someone orders a hotdog, I can bring him a steak. Or even just a bottle of water. I am not financially involved in the realisation of the project, so I don’t have an ego problem. And I don’t have a signature style. Basically, I’m presenting an idea, and most of the time the idea is realised in a way that is ten times better than expected. But you still never know. I have good friends who are architects, and they are happy when I can work with them, because then they have a completely free hand in the project’s implementation. Normally an architect can’t do very much, because the banks and financial backers make the decisions. But the main difference still lies in the fact that I am not bound by such constraints; I can define the task myself.”

    ‘It was the most crooked, and the most unrealistic wooden bricolage that was amongst the choices. And I think the reason is, it’s so different from the other buildings that it makes some sense.’ Thomas Schütte, responding to a question from Rolf Fehlbaum, who discovered a model of the Blockhaus at a gallery.

published in : www.artsy.net

Pace Gallery-Jean Dubuffet

Pace Gallery . Jean Dubuffet

    Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called “low art” and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art movement Art Brut, and for the collection of works—Collection de l’art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime.

    Jean Dubuffet rejected artistic traditions. He strove to create a unique visual language with which to portray the everyday world. One of the most important early theorists and collectors of “art brut,” Dubuffet was a major force in the recognition and appreciation of outsider art. Naive and unconventional visions of reality influenced the development of his own singularly personal style and imagery. He explored and experimented with many printmaking techniques throughout his career, most notably silkscreen and lithography.Dubuffet has been the subject of numerous museum and gallery exhibitions, and his work is included in important public and private collections worldwide. His personal collection of outsider art was the foundation of the Collection de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.

    NEW YORK, NY.- Pace Gallery is presenting Jean Dubuffet’s Le cirque (1970), a monumental sculpture occupying the entire first-floor gallery of Pace’s 540 West 25th Street location in New York, on view September 18 – October 24, 2020. Le cirque is a habitable environment that suggests an urban plaza, which Dubuffet first conceived and sculpted in 1970 as a model for future enlargement at architectural scale. Measuring thirty feet square and thirteen feet in height, Le cirque is one of the last remaining works from the late-1960s and early-1970s to be realized at heroic size. Marking a crucial moment in Dubuffet’s deeply influential oeuvre, it stands as a major achievement in the artist’s sculptural practice and heralds the final chapter in his celebrated Hourloupe cycle, which lasted from 1962 to 1974. This cycle, the longest and most prolific of Dubuffet’s career, began with drawings and paintings, to which Dubuffet added reliefs to expand their presence spatially and “give them life,” as the artist stated. This evolved further into painted and sculpted panels, which came together in ambitious sculptural and architectural installations.

    The original model for Le cirque was created shortly after Dubuffet’s second solo exhibition with Pace Gallery in New York in 1970, which debuted a body of new black and-white sculptures called Simulacres. Dubuffet’s inaugural exhibition with Pace had taken place in 1968, after the artist met the gallery’s founder Arne Glimcher for the first time in Paris in 1966 and began working with him the following year. A foundational figure in the gallery’s history, Dubuffet’s work has been the subject of more than 20 solo exhibitions at Pace since 1968 and has been featured in countless dual and group exhibitions.

published in : pacegallery.com

Pace Gallery . Jean Dubuffet

    Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called “low art” and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art movement Art Brut, and for the collection of works Collection de l’art brut that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime.

Clement Meadmore

clement meadmore sculptor

    Clement Meadmore is one of the most highly respected artists of his generation, for both the quality of his work and the integrity of his commitment to public sculpture. This sculptor has been uniquely successful as a creator of public art that serves as a positive, unifying force in the environment.Although initially linked with the Minimalists, Clement Meadmore transcended geometry with work of uncommon force and elegance, powerful in large scale and small.

    It relies for its effect on the opposition between line and mass, also deriving power and eloquence from its fusion of formal invention with intense feeling, a frankly spiritual dimension. Yet ultimately the appeal of Clement Meadmore’s work lies in its success as sheer form.The artist has managed to overcome geometry’s qualities of stasis, containment, rigor, and sobriety. His sculptures deny their physical reality, suggesting weightlessness. Because of this extroverted and animated character, his public commissions provide oases of humanity in the urban environment. He himself has stated: “A building is part of the environment, but a sculpture is a presence inhabiting the environment.”

    Clement Meadmore’s works range in size from those that fit in the palm of a hand to others that stretch more than forty-six feet, not to mention a proposal for a six-hundred-foot skyscraper sculpture. This range in scale is belied by the seeming monumentality and robust physicality of even the smallest maquette.In a typical Meadmore sculpture, a large rectangular volume of steel twists and turns upon itself. The point about his classic works is that they are huge, and so the great curl of steel takes on this epic scale, as if mighty and usually exuberant forces are at work. In Melbourne, a massive steel structure called Dervish has been sitting beside the Yarra River for 20 years.

    Another Meadmore sculpture called Flippant Flurry slumbers on the rooftop of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It was hidden behind a wall until 2010, now it can be seen through the glass panes of the gallery rooms. But a Meadmore sculpture titled Janus has met a more controversial fate. Australia donated Janus to Mexico City for the Mexico Olympics in 1968, and for a while it was on public display, but that’s no longer the case. Since 1996, it’s been inside the grounds of a private school. Some people are now saying the Mexican government has effectively abandoned this gift and Australia should now ask for it to be returned.

published in : Clement Meadmore | Sculptor

clement meadmore sculptor

    Clement Meadmore is one of the most highly respected artists  of his generation, for both the quality of his work and the integrity of his commitment to public sculpture. This sculptor has been uniquely successful as a creator of public art that serves as a positive, unifying force in the environment.