Beschreibung:

8 Thomas Schütte Großer Geist Nr. 9 1998 Cor-Ten steel 98 3/8 x 50 x 55 in. (249.9 x 127 x 139.7 cm.)
Provenance Skarstedt Gallery, New York Exhibited New York, Skarstedt Gallery, Winter Group Show, January 7 - February 18, 2012 Catalogue Essay “The things you cannot talk about - these are essential. Some answers can’t be spoken. I believe that material, form and colour have their own language that cannot be translated.” THOMAS SCHÜTTE 1998 Perhaps no other contemporary sculptor has produced such a wide and varied oeuvre as Thomas Schütte From his seminal United Enemies series, with its clay grotesques wrapped together in fabric to his Große Kopfe (large heads) in ceramic, his creative materiality has led to figures that defy our monumental expectations of sculpture; instead of a tribute to the gods in their image, Schütte has given us creatures both hilarious and sinister, all infinitely relatable to the human condition. Aside from the personality of his figures, however, Schütte has also employed the common tools of sculpture to his manipulative benefit: in his Großer Geist series, the large spirits themselves are cast in enormous stature, but feature qualities that run contradictory to their size. The present lot, Großer Geist, Nr. 9, 1998, is paradigmatic of this paradox, a creature huge in size but great of heart, solid in medium yet liquid its shape-shifting brilliance. Schütte’s early work was greatly informed by his training. As a student under Gerhard Richter Schütte’s university years introduced him to alternative methods of painting, in which illusion and ambiguity deliver a depth charge in meaning as powerful as proper figure portrayal. In terms of sculpture, his first major work featured small-scale architectural models, based in an urban utopian reality, and featuring minimal design properties. Even here, we can view Schütte’s early adoption of the tenets of sculptural simplicity— concentrating attention on the object itself as opposed to any indulgent intricacies. In addition, Schütte’s architectural minimalism, first on display at the exhibition “Westkunst” in Cologne during 1981, shows us a young artist fascinated with monumentalism, his monoliths presented as single objects as opposed to functioning models meant for realization. By 1995, Schütte was already fully immersed in his United Enemies series, exploring the relationship between hatred and love. But his interests soon turned to larger-scale work, and his Großer Geist series began to take form. Cast in either aluminum, polished bronze, or Cor-Ten steel, the Großer Geists are among the recognizable of Schütte’s works, most over eight feet tall and massive both in scope and weight. While United Enemies was based in conflicting personalities amongst equals, the Großer Geists are at once more severe and more philosophical. Their severity lies in their appearance— their obvious size, compounded with their monstrous Golemesque appearance, makes for a imposing sculpture to state the very least. But the according sculptural features, such as their smooth, almost disintegrating appearance and softy defined limbs and faces, lend them a strange air of harmlessness. It is as if Schütte has decided to make a band of approachable monsters, born into the chains of gigantism but making the very best of an unfortunate situation. In creating these sculptural oxymorons, Schütte prompts us to question our own physical and emotional incongruities. Großer Geist, Nr. 9, 1998 is Schütte’s tribute to nature’s tricks. Measuring over eight feet in height, Schütte’s massive monster has several stages of impressions for the observer. The first, at the viewer’s most distant perspective, is the obvious enormity of the object. Straddling the ground as if treading the snows of a mountainous wasteland, the present lot’s medium, Cor-Ten steel, has been trusted for decades by artists such as Richard Serra and Donald Judd for its ability to resist natural corrosion by developing a protective layer of rust. In Schütte’s sculpture, the color of the surface only contributes to its terrifyi