Thomas Schutte
Born in Oldenburg, Germany, 1954
So far as meanings are concerned, I would rather talk with my hands and through forms and let these creatures live their own lives and tell their own stories. Avoiding certain fixed positions is important to me, avoiding being too classical or too predictable…I always hope that in the end the work will be physically present. That the works lead to essential questions is important.
Some answers can’t be spoken. I believe that material, form and color have their own language that cannot be translated. Direct experience is much more touching than media, photographs and so on. The body and soul thing, space and light…
I’ve never forgotten the early Greek sculptures, the Kouros figures. I found them much more impressive than the famous classical Greek sculptures.
I don’t feel the weight [of the figurative tradition] because when I do them, I’m not thinking about the history, I’m thinking about the future. And in any case some traditional forms are still present, they are right here with us, and not just in books.
There are some ideas I’m working on—for instance to have a whole figure, not distorted but contained within itself. Sometimes I have the need to look at history, I am very interested in looking again at the heavy figures of Maillol, or these brutal sculptures of Matisse, they are really brutal, and there is a lot to learn from them.
It’s an interesting challenge for me to handle these heavy subjects. Doing my work is like hiking through the Alps and getting lost every ten minutes. It’s important to have different perspectives opening all the time. I don’t know where the path leads to and there is nowhere to sit down. Sometimes they are companions on a journey, which is very nice.
--Thomas Schütte
Born in Oldenburg, Germany, 1954
So far as meanings are concerned, I would rather talk with my hands and through forms and let these creatures live their own lives and tell their own stories. Avoiding certain fixed positions is important to me, avoiding being too classical or too predictable…I always hope that in the end the work will be physically present. That the works lead to essential questions is important.
Some answers can’t be spoken. I believe that material, form and color have their own language that cannot be translated. Direct experience is much more touching than media, photographs and so on. The body and soul thing, space and light…
I’ve never forgotten the early Greek sculptures, the Kouros figures. I found them much more impressive than the famous classical Greek sculptures.
I don’t feel the weight [of the figurative tradition] because when I do them, I’m not thinking about the history, I’m thinking about the future. And in any case some traditional forms are still present, they are right here with us, and not just in books.
There are some ideas I’m working on—for instance to have a whole figure, not distorted but contained within itself. Sometimes I have the need to look at history, I am very interested in looking again at the heavy figures of Maillol, or these brutal sculptures of Matisse, they are really brutal, and there is a lot to learn from them.
It’s an interesting challenge for me to handle these heavy subjects. Doing my work is like hiking through the Alps and getting lost every ten minutes. It’s important to have different perspectives opening all the time. I don’t know where the path leads to and there is nowhere to sit down. Sometimes they are companions on a journey, which is very nice.
--Thomas Schütte
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