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Lot Essay
‘My figures in Kassel [at Documenta IX] are victims, basically lifesize vases, precious containers with modest faces. I hope everybody feels that the figures have an interior’
THOMAS SCHÜTTE
Study for ‘Die Fremden’ (1992) is a large-scale painting made in preparation for Thomas Schütte’s seminal sculptural installation Die Fremden (The Strangers), which he created to coincide with Documenta IX in 1992. Monumental in its own right, this colourful study captures Schütte’s vision for the powerful group of glazed terracotta figures, urns and luggage that he would install on the neoclassical portico of the old Rotes Palais (occupied by the Leffer department store), opposite the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel. A small ‘family’ of figures remains on the building to this day, with the others split between the collections of Tate Modern, the Museum Fridericianum, and the Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck. Die Fremden was conceived as a way of highlighting the plight of refugees who had arrived in Germany following unification in 1989, particularly those fleeing the first Gulf War of 1991. These people were met with xenophobia, hostility and violence, which Schütte saw the German state as complicit in through its lack of intervention. Each of Schütte’s figures is presented in the same format of simple body, columnar legs and downcast face, but with individuated colours, outfits and statures; the urns emphasise an idea of people as containers, precious vessels of their own history and experience. By placing them to watch over Kassel’s prominent public square, Schütte brought the lives of these ‘strangers’ to striking attention. Theatre informs Schütte’s work as much as architecture. Operating like a set design, Study for ‘Die Fremden’ prepares the stage for a masterpiece.
Executed in gouache, the study’s bold colours reflect the clarity and power of the sculptures’ conception, as well as their relationship to the façade on which they stand sentinel. Schütte wished them to be viewed only from afar; appropriately, the study is dominated by the imposing frontage of the Rotes Palais, replicating the impact of the figures’ vertiginous distance from the viewer below. The graphic rendering of the building’s portico, columns, steps and arches displays Schütte’s sharp attention to context, and his understanding of architecture as a way of exploring the structures, systems and contradictions of society. ‘They wanted sculpture as a logo or traffic sign’, he recalled, ‘but I immediately had this idea of putting people on the roof ... For me it was first of all a very interesting site overlooking this place, and I immediately had this image in mind of placing some colourful, static figures on top of the building as a permanent installation’ (T. Schütte, quoted in J. Lingwood, ‘Interview,’ in Thomas Schütte, London 1998, pp. 12-13). Public memorials are more often erected for conquerors than for oppressed people, dictators than refugees. A key work in a practice that has long powerfully subverted the language of public monument, Die Fremden offers sculpture as an alternative, subtle and startling means of remembrance. ‘My figures in Kassel are victims,’ said Schütte, ‘basically lifesize vases, precious containers with modest faces. I hope everybody feels that the figures have an interior’ (T. Schütte, quoted in J. Lingwood, ‘Interview,’ in Thomas Schütte, London 1998, p. 14). Much as each terracotta ‘stranger’ speaks of an individual life, Study for ‘Die Fremden’ tells the story of this important work’s creation, and gives a fascinating insight into the process of one of the world’s greatest living sculptors.
THOMAS SCHÜTTE
Study for ‘Die Fremden’ (1992) is a large-scale painting made in preparation for Thomas Schütte’s seminal sculptural installation Die Fremden (The Strangers), which he created to coincide with Documenta IX in 1992. Monumental in its own right, this colourful study captures Schütte’s vision for the powerful group of glazed terracotta figures, urns and luggage that he would install on the neoclassical portico of the old Rotes Palais (occupied by the Leffer department store), opposite the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel. A small ‘family’ of figures remains on the building to this day, with the others split between the collections of Tate Modern, the Museum Fridericianum, and the Musik- und Kongresshalle Lübeck. Die Fremden was conceived as a way of highlighting the plight of refugees who had arrived in Germany following unification in 1989, particularly those fleeing the first Gulf War of 1991. These people were met with xenophobia, hostility and violence, which Schütte saw the German state as complicit in through its lack of intervention. Each of Schütte’s figures is presented in the same format of simple body, columnar legs and downcast face, but with individuated colours, outfits and statures; the urns emphasise an idea of people as containers, precious vessels of their own history and experience. By placing them to watch over Kassel’s prominent public square, Schütte brought the lives of these ‘strangers’ to striking attention. Theatre informs Schütte’s work as much as architecture. Operating like a set design, Study for ‘Die Fremden’ prepares the stage for a masterpiece.
Executed in gouache, the study’s bold colours reflect the clarity and power of the sculptures’ conception, as well as their relationship to the façade on which they stand sentinel. Schütte wished them to be viewed only from afar; appropriately, the study is dominated by the imposing frontage of the Rotes Palais, replicating the impact of the figures’ vertiginous distance from the viewer below. The graphic rendering of the building’s portico, columns, steps and arches displays Schütte’s sharp attention to context, and his understanding of architecture as a way of exploring the structures, systems and contradictions of society. ‘They wanted sculpture as a logo or traffic sign’, he recalled, ‘but I immediately had this idea of putting people on the roof ... For me it was first of all a very interesting site overlooking this place, and I immediately had this image in mind of placing some colourful, static figures on top of the building as a permanent installation’ (T. Schütte, quoted in J. Lingwood, ‘Interview,’ in Thomas Schütte, London 1998, pp. 12-13). Public memorials are more often erected for conquerors than for oppressed people, dictators than refugees. A key work in a practice that has long powerfully subverted the language of public monument, Die Fremden offers sculpture as an alternative, subtle and startling means of remembrance. ‘My figures in Kassel are victims,’ said Schütte, ‘basically lifesize vases, precious containers with modest faces. I hope everybody feels that the figures have an interior’ (T. Schütte, quoted in J. Lingwood, ‘Interview,’ in Thomas Schütte, London 1998, p. 14). Much as each terracotta ‘stranger’ speaks of an individual life, Study for ‘Die Fremden’ tells the story of this important work’s creation, and gives a fascinating insight into the process of one of the world’s greatest living sculptors.