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拍品專文
Executed in 1995, and acquired by Roger and Josette Vanthournout five years later, the present lot comprises three aluminium figures that form part of Thomas Schütte’s celebrated series of Geister (‘Spirits’). One sits upon the ground: a rarity within the cycle. The other two stand, their heads and limbs articulated as if poised mid-conversation. At once familiar and otherworldly, the Geister represent one of the key strands of Schütte’s art. Executed on a variety of scales—from the Kleine Geister, begun in 1995, to the monumental Groẞe Geister that dominated his practice until 2004—they embody the spirit of a practice dedicated to dismantling the traditions of figurative sculpture. Typically organised in groups, the Geister inhabit their environments with uncanny human presence, interacting and gesticulating in characterful poses. At the same time, however, they seem to dematerialise before our eyes, their gleaming surfaces ultimately reflecting the viewer themselves. Examples are housed in museums worldwide, including permanent installations outside the Museum of Contemporary Art, Strasbourg and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Letzter Geist (2024-2025), a new instalment in the series, was recently unveiled at the Jardin du Palais-Royal, Paris.
The Geister were born during a period of critical acclaim for Schütte, following his landmark installation Die Fremden (The Strangers) at Documenta IX in 1992. The series started life as part of a collaboration with the artist Richard Deacon, which was staged at Lisson Gallery, London in 1995 under the title Them and Us. In the exhibition, Schütte’s figures were paired with Deacon’s spindle-shaped animal hair sculptures, as well as various other objects. Both groups had been made independently of one another, and the act of bringing them together prompted lengthy discussions about proportion, scale and the interaction between beings from different realms. ‘We spent days in the gallery constructing the scenes’, recalls Schütte; ‘… The figures are beings. They relate immediately to the viewer, to the light strip, the skirting board, to the lighting … they are immediately there … But somehow they never acquired faces or garments, but just rather eccentric gestures’ (T. Schütte quoted in U. Loock, Thomas Schütte, New York 2004, pp. 142-143).
The Geister began as wax figures, which were then subsequently cast in aluminium. Schütte used wax cords—a material employed in aircraft construction—which he spiralled together and then immersed in liquid wax. The malleability of his chosen medium gave rise to an astonishing expressive range across the series. Capturing the artist’s interests in dramaturgy and theatre design, the Geister confront the viewer like characters in a play, forming a cast ranging from clowns and jesters to philosophers and raconteurs. They are invaders from the world of science fiction, evoking the Star Wars figurines included in Schütte’s 1980 work Großes Theater, as well as the tiny people of Lilliput described in Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Equally, they seem to traverse centuries of sculptural tradition, channelling influences ranging from archaic Greek Kouros figures to Auguste Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais (1884-1889). For Schütte, whose multi-media practice delights in ambiguity between styles and genres, the Geister are perpetually suspended between worlds.
This effect is heightened by the works’ reflective surfaces. Though cast in weighty metal— Schütte would also employ bronze and steel—they ultimately remain illusory spectres. ‘When you look at them the surface seems to disintegrate in the reflected light’, explains the artist, noting that the figures resemble ‘a huge disco’ when gathered en masse (T. Schütte, ibid., p. 147). The art historian Julian Heynan, meanwhile, writes that ‘One is reminded of those special effects, produced by the most advanced film techniques, in which a body materialises out of nothing, and can be transformed into another at any time’ (J. Heynen et al. (eds.), Thomas Schütte, London 1998, p. 102). The dialogue between form and formlessness plays out time and again across Schütte’s oeuvre: from the United Enemies, which teeter on the brink of abstraction, to the Frauen (Women), which seem to dissolve the traditions of monumental sculpture in their liquid, hybrid forms. In the present work, human presence shifts in and out of focus, until we realise that we are simply staring at our own image.
The Geister were born during a period of critical acclaim for Schütte, following his landmark installation Die Fremden (The Strangers) at Documenta IX in 1992. The series started life as part of a collaboration with the artist Richard Deacon, which was staged at Lisson Gallery, London in 1995 under the title Them and Us. In the exhibition, Schütte’s figures were paired with Deacon’s spindle-shaped animal hair sculptures, as well as various other objects. Both groups had been made independently of one another, and the act of bringing them together prompted lengthy discussions about proportion, scale and the interaction between beings from different realms. ‘We spent days in the gallery constructing the scenes’, recalls Schütte; ‘… The figures are beings. They relate immediately to the viewer, to the light strip, the skirting board, to the lighting … they are immediately there … But somehow they never acquired faces or garments, but just rather eccentric gestures’ (T. Schütte quoted in U. Loock, Thomas Schütte, New York 2004, pp. 142-143).
The Geister began as wax figures, which were then subsequently cast in aluminium. Schütte used wax cords—a material employed in aircraft construction—which he spiralled together and then immersed in liquid wax. The malleability of his chosen medium gave rise to an astonishing expressive range across the series. Capturing the artist’s interests in dramaturgy and theatre design, the Geister confront the viewer like characters in a play, forming a cast ranging from clowns and jesters to philosophers and raconteurs. They are invaders from the world of science fiction, evoking the Star Wars figurines included in Schütte’s 1980 work Großes Theater, as well as the tiny people of Lilliput described in Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Equally, they seem to traverse centuries of sculptural tradition, channelling influences ranging from archaic Greek Kouros figures to Auguste Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais (1884-1889). For Schütte, whose multi-media practice delights in ambiguity between styles and genres, the Geister are perpetually suspended between worlds.
This effect is heightened by the works’ reflective surfaces. Though cast in weighty metal— Schütte would also employ bronze and steel—they ultimately remain illusory spectres. ‘When you look at them the surface seems to disintegrate in the reflected light’, explains the artist, noting that the figures resemble ‘a huge disco’ when gathered en masse (T. Schütte, ibid., p. 147). The art historian Julian Heynan, meanwhile, writes that ‘One is reminded of those special effects, produced by the most advanced film techniques, in which a body materialises out of nothing, and can be transformed into another at any time’ (J. Heynen et al. (eds.), Thomas Schütte, London 1998, p. 102). The dialogue between form and formlessness plays out time and again across Schütte’s oeuvre: from the United Enemies, which teeter on the brink of abstraction, to the Frauen (Women), which seem to dissolve the traditions of monumental sculpture in their liquid, hybrid forms. In the present work, human presence shifts in and out of focus, until we realise that we are simply staring at our own image.