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拍品专文
‘Like gargoyles looking down from the sides of medieval cathedrals, funerary effigies in medieval churches or the cadaverous presences who inhabit the unredemptive darkness of Goya’s black paintings or Ensor’s carnivalesque processions, these sculptures of the living dead are cautionary figures for an unvirtuous age’
–James Lingwood
With a mesmeric tactility that seems to defy the very makings of their cold, bronze exteriors, these two works from Thomas Schütte’s renowned series of Wichte are charged with raw and visceral character. Executed in 2006, the year after Schütte received the eminent Golden Lion Award at the 51st Venice Biennale, the series in its entirety consists of twelve busts, each exuding an immediate sense of individual charisma and vitality. In these internationally acclaimed works, which have been included in major solo exhibitions at Serpentine Gallery, London, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Schütte reassesses the figurative traditions of sculpture, presenting emotionally resonant observations of the many faces of the human condition through compelling manipulations of the roughhewn materiality of bronze. Though brazenly unique in character and appearance, the two present busts share a powerful urgency etched within their expressive and deep-set features. Goblin-like, these creatures exist as ageless, timeless figures, forever transfixed in a wide-eyed state of total and eternal alertness. The very title of the series, Wichte – the German word for ‘imps’, sometimes translated by Schütte as ‘jerks’ – signifies the almost grotesque and severe visages of the busts. Indeed, as James Lingwood writes, ‘Like gargoyles looking down from the sides of medieval cathedrals, funerary effigies in medieval churches or the cadaverous presences who inhabit the unredemptive darkness of Goya’s black paintings or Ensor’s carnivalesque processions, these sculptures of the living dead are cautionary figures for an unvirtuous age’ (J. Lingwood, quoted in Public/Political: Thomas Schütte, Germany 2012, p. 157).
Radiating enthralling energy, the busts have a magnetic charm that is at once enticing and disturbing. They present what the artist has referred to as ‘the grammar of the character,’ as opposed to the mere representation of the psychological (T. Schütte, quoted in Thomas Schütte: Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Michigan, 2007, p. 26). Echoing the post-Cubist sculptural tradition evinced in the bronze casts of Picasso, Boccioni, and Matisse, the Wichte series pertains to the art-historical tradition of picturing the outsider, from Jean Dubuffet’s interest in the art of children and the insane, to the late studies by Thèodore Géricault of individual heads and body parts. The series is also reminiscent of the ‘character head’ busts created in the late eighteenth century by German- Austrian baroque sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, who aimed to define 64 ‘canonical grimaces’; Schütte likewise caricatures not individuals but anonymous physiognomic ‘types’ that speak across the ages. Figuration continues to play an important part in Schütte’s artistic practice. He revels in creating character and individuality through nuances of posture, pose and facial gesture, and is particularly interested in how these unite with certain mediums and textures to evoke instinctive responses from the viewer. ‘I would rather talk with my hands and through forms and let these creatures live their own lives and tell their own stories,’ he has said of his work; ‘Avoiding certain fixed positions is important to me, avoiding being too classical or too predictable’ (T. Schütte, quoted in ‘James Lingwood in conversation with Thomas Schütte,’ Thomas Schütte, London, 1998, p. 22). Schütte reaches an apotheosis in the Wichte series, his captivating bronzes masterfully merging antiquated visions of the world with more enigmatic and dystopian possibilities.
–James Lingwood
With a mesmeric tactility that seems to defy the very makings of their cold, bronze exteriors, these two works from Thomas Schütte’s renowned series of Wichte are charged with raw and visceral character. Executed in 2006, the year after Schütte received the eminent Golden Lion Award at the 51st Venice Biennale, the series in its entirety consists of twelve busts, each exuding an immediate sense of individual charisma and vitality. In these internationally acclaimed works, which have been included in major solo exhibitions at Serpentine Gallery, London, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Schütte reassesses the figurative traditions of sculpture, presenting emotionally resonant observations of the many faces of the human condition through compelling manipulations of the roughhewn materiality of bronze. Though brazenly unique in character and appearance, the two present busts share a powerful urgency etched within their expressive and deep-set features. Goblin-like, these creatures exist as ageless, timeless figures, forever transfixed in a wide-eyed state of total and eternal alertness. The very title of the series, Wichte – the German word for ‘imps’, sometimes translated by Schütte as ‘jerks’ – signifies the almost grotesque and severe visages of the busts. Indeed, as James Lingwood writes, ‘Like gargoyles looking down from the sides of medieval cathedrals, funerary effigies in medieval churches or the cadaverous presences who inhabit the unredemptive darkness of Goya’s black paintings or Ensor’s carnivalesque processions, these sculptures of the living dead are cautionary figures for an unvirtuous age’ (J. Lingwood, quoted in Public/Political: Thomas Schütte, Germany 2012, p. 157).
Radiating enthralling energy, the busts have a magnetic charm that is at once enticing and disturbing. They present what the artist has referred to as ‘the grammar of the character,’ as opposed to the mere representation of the psychological (T. Schütte, quoted in Thomas Schütte: Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Michigan, 2007, p. 26). Echoing the post-Cubist sculptural tradition evinced in the bronze casts of Picasso, Boccioni, and Matisse, the Wichte series pertains to the art-historical tradition of picturing the outsider, from Jean Dubuffet’s interest in the art of children and the insane, to the late studies by Thèodore Géricault of individual heads and body parts. The series is also reminiscent of the ‘character head’ busts created in the late eighteenth century by German- Austrian baroque sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, who aimed to define 64 ‘canonical grimaces’; Schütte likewise caricatures not individuals but anonymous physiognomic ‘types’ that speak across the ages. Figuration continues to play an important part in Schütte’s artistic practice. He revels in creating character and individuality through nuances of posture, pose and facial gesture, and is particularly interested in how these unite with certain mediums and textures to evoke instinctive responses from the viewer. ‘I would rather talk with my hands and through forms and let these creatures live their own lives and tell their own stories,’ he has said of his work; ‘Avoiding certain fixed positions is important to me, avoiding being too classical or too predictable’ (T. Schütte, quoted in ‘James Lingwood in conversation with Thomas Schütte,’ Thomas Schütte, London, 1998, p. 22). Schütte reaches an apotheosis in the Wichte series, his captivating bronzes masterfully merging antiquated visions of the world with more enigmatic and dystopian possibilities.