.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
‘Ultimately, Schütte’s art wins respect by giving politics’ hazy entanglements a concrete image which might encourage analysis, or even action’ (H. R. Reust in U. Loock (ed.), Thomas Schütte. Public/Political, Cologne 2012, p. 99).
With its three robed figures intractably bound, wrestling for an uncertain power, Thomas Schütte’s Kleiner Respekt balances precariously upon a totemic plinth. Executed in 1994, it belongs to one of the most important phases of Schütte’s figural practice and, along with its companion works Große Respekt and No Respekt, represents a subversive commentary on the architecture of power. Following on from the artist’s acclaimed installation Fremden (Strangers) at documenta two years previously, as well as the United Enemies and Innocenti of the same period, Kleiner Respekt continues Schütte’s wry examination of the public-political nexus. Pompously elevated upon a lofty pedestal yet deliberately diminutive in stature, Kleiner Respekt taps into the tragi-comic dimensions of political machination. Bound together by a sticky glue-like patina, the figures extend the language of Schütte’s formative sculptural series Mann im Matsch (Man in Mud), 1982-85, whose miniature protagonists struggled in vain against a sea of mud. Moulded from a combination of fimo and plaster, the figures are at once writhing, visceral forms and pathetic remnants of humanity, puppet-like monsters eternally conjoined in a fruitless three-way struggle. Haunted by a humanizing fleshiness, the gruesomely warped goblin-like visages profess the fragility of corporeal existence, macabre reminders of the ill-fated human condition. Yet underpinning this vulgarity is a jarring sense of comedy, aping the drama of modern politics as the figures attempt to break free from their competitors.
Conceived following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the unstable tug of war enacted by Schütte’s sculptural trio recalls the images of toppled statues that flooded the media in the aftermath of the Cold War. Included in major solo exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery, London, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Kleiner Respekt engages the dialogue between patriarchy and human frailty that continues to inform the development of Schütte’s practice. Schütte’s satirical approach to figurative sculpture first began in 1992, prompted by a year spent living in Rome. There, he had observed the heroic statues of Roman antiquity, and admired the portraits of emperors in the collection of the Capitoline Museum. At this time, however, Italy was marked by considerable political upheaval, with the ‘Clean Hands’ scandal which famously implicated Andreotti and Craxi. The contrast between the classical icons and the realities of contemporary politics gave birth to a new sculptural vernacular within Schütte’s practice. Through his figurative forms, Schütte began to tackle the corruption bound up with the armature of political power. In the United Enemies and Innocenti series, the artist stripped back the smart suits and ingratiating smiles of his subjects to reveal undercurrents of venality and duplicity, tempered by comedic posture and morphological absurdity. In the Respekt series that followed, Schütte continued to explore these dualities whilst looking back to the sculptural language of the Mann im Matsch works. Described by James Lingwood as ‘no more than ignoble little toys covered in wax and mired in the mud’, Mann im Matsch embodied a kind of anti-heroic existentialism that is recapitulated in Kleiner Respekt (J. Lingwood in U. Loock (ed.), Thomas Schütte. Public/Political, Cologne 2012, p. 94). The viscous substance in which Schütte had previously embedded his tiny figures now subsumes their entire being, invading their garments and welding them together like tar. Constituting an overt critique of the patriarchs of political life, Schütte’s eternally ensnarled puppet-like figures evoke the unfavourable alliances forcibly procured by political circumstance or personal greed. Rendered impotent and static by their enchainment, they are reduced to little more than theatrical clowns, farcically conjoined, fated to perform forever upon Schütte’s exposed stage.
With its three robed figures intractably bound, wrestling for an uncertain power, Thomas Schütte’s Kleiner Respekt balances precariously upon a totemic plinth. Executed in 1994, it belongs to one of the most important phases of Schütte’s figural practice and, along with its companion works Große Respekt and No Respekt, represents a subversive commentary on the architecture of power. Following on from the artist’s acclaimed installation Fremden (Strangers) at documenta two years previously, as well as the United Enemies and Innocenti of the same period, Kleiner Respekt continues Schütte’s wry examination of the public-political nexus. Pompously elevated upon a lofty pedestal yet deliberately diminutive in stature, Kleiner Respekt taps into the tragi-comic dimensions of political machination. Bound together by a sticky glue-like patina, the figures extend the language of Schütte’s formative sculptural series Mann im Matsch (Man in Mud), 1982-85, whose miniature protagonists struggled in vain against a sea of mud. Moulded from a combination of fimo and plaster, the figures are at once writhing, visceral forms and pathetic remnants of humanity, puppet-like monsters eternally conjoined in a fruitless three-way struggle. Haunted by a humanizing fleshiness, the gruesomely warped goblin-like visages profess the fragility of corporeal existence, macabre reminders of the ill-fated human condition. Yet underpinning this vulgarity is a jarring sense of comedy, aping the drama of modern politics as the figures attempt to break free from their competitors.
Conceived following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the unstable tug of war enacted by Schütte’s sculptural trio recalls the images of toppled statues that flooded the media in the aftermath of the Cold War. Included in major solo exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery, London, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Kleiner Respekt engages the dialogue between patriarchy and human frailty that continues to inform the development of Schütte’s practice. Schütte’s satirical approach to figurative sculpture first began in 1992, prompted by a year spent living in Rome. There, he had observed the heroic statues of Roman antiquity, and admired the portraits of emperors in the collection of the Capitoline Museum. At this time, however, Italy was marked by considerable political upheaval, with the ‘Clean Hands’ scandal which famously implicated Andreotti and Craxi. The contrast between the classical icons and the realities of contemporary politics gave birth to a new sculptural vernacular within Schütte’s practice. Through his figurative forms, Schütte began to tackle the corruption bound up with the armature of political power. In the United Enemies and Innocenti series, the artist stripped back the smart suits and ingratiating smiles of his subjects to reveal undercurrents of venality and duplicity, tempered by comedic posture and morphological absurdity. In the Respekt series that followed, Schütte continued to explore these dualities whilst looking back to the sculptural language of the Mann im Matsch works. Described by James Lingwood as ‘no more than ignoble little toys covered in wax and mired in the mud’, Mann im Matsch embodied a kind of anti-heroic existentialism that is recapitulated in Kleiner Respekt (J. Lingwood in U. Loock (ed.), Thomas Schütte. Public/Political, Cologne 2012, p. 94). The viscous substance in which Schütte had previously embedded his tiny figures now subsumes their entire being, invading their garments and welding them together like tar. Constituting an overt critique of the patriarchs of political life, Schütte’s eternally ensnarled puppet-like figures evoke the unfavourable alliances forcibly procured by political circumstance or personal greed. Rendered impotent and static by their enchainment, they are reduced to little more than theatrical clowns, farcically conjoined, fated to perform forever upon Schütte’s exposed stage.