Untitled

Credit: Gift of Dato' Kho Hui Meng 2019, Collection of SMU

This artwork is part of 25x25 Campus Art Tour.

Listen to the audio description of the artwork here.

Transcript:

This 3-metre tall sculpture in a high gloss red gives the impression of an abstracted human form with long slim legs and short arms stretched upwards, like a dancing figure on the cusp of its next move. However, the resemblance is completely unintentional.

In making it, the German artist Rotraut was guided purely by intuition and a desire to capture a moment of spontaneous release. She has described her creative process as being like a river which just flows. To create her sculptures, she pushes liquid plaster out of a bottle through a quick motion of her hand and body. The material instantly hardens after falling into a random shape, and is then cast into a monumental sculpture which represents the release of energy in a fraction of a second. This singular act of creation is likened to the Big Bang and a celebration of life.

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Rotraut (b. 1938, Rerik, Germany) is a German-French artist. She began painting and drawing as a teenager in Düsseldorf when she lived with her brother, artist Günther Uecker. In 1958, she moved to France to work as an au pair for the artist Arman's family and there she met Yves Klein. She became his companion, assistant, model and muse. In 1959, Rotraut had her first solo show at the New Visions Center Gallery. In 1962, only six months after marrying, Klein passed away and Rotraut has managed his portfolio and legacy since.

In the 1970s, Rotraut gained overdue reception for her work, specifically for her celestially-patterned ‘Galaxies' series, and was invited to a group show in the inaugural year of the Centre George Pompidou, Paris. Rotraut's artistic output turned to sculpture in the 1990s, and her brightly-coloured monumental sculptures have been exhibited around the world since. In her art-making, Rotraut is guided by intuition. She delves deeply into her subconscious to make the unconscious conscious. Her sculptures are sometimes almost abstract, sometimes approaching a specific form, and are inspired by the release of energy made through the gesture of squeezing glue and plaster from a bottle so that random shapes emerge.

"Each form is created in a single moment, a fraction of a second, during which she releases liquid plaster from a bottle through a quick motion of her hand and body. After falling into shape, the material instantly hardens. This singular event, repeated hundreds of times, is actually not unlike the singular event that is commonly referred to as the 'Big Bang'... Rotraut's forms, in their precognizant origin, are symbols of the 'collective unconsciousness,' of that cosmic abundance—spiritual gifts of original joy and well-being, which Rotraut shared happily with anyone who momentarily enters her time and space. With every shape and color, Rotraut's art, guided by the intuitive power of her body and the conscious affirmation of her mind, is a celebration of life."

Klaus Ottmann, "Rotraut's Miraculous Life-Forms," in Exhibition Catalogue, Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Rotraut, 2001, n.p.