Kilian Rüthemann’s creative practice results in effective works in situ, however, has also deeply conceptual roots and stems out from the artist’s interests in artistic conventions, materials and tools above all. Even though Rüthemann puts gesture in the centre of his attention (the final shape of the piece of art in his artistic practice usually results from consequently executed single action), he also gladly reveals all other causes and decisions that stand behind it. If we were to look for kindred to him artists on the Polish scene, it would be for sure Rafał Bujnowski. However, as much as the Cracow artist creates with the medium of paint, Kilian Rüthemann remains faithful to sculpture and deals with similar issues through the spatial solutions. Nonetheless themes typical for the medium of painting regularly appear in his works. “My interest is indeed not necessarily the painting itself but the paint, the tools, the surface on which the paint is going to get applied to. Also the moment of the placing/hanging of a painting is of a great interest to me as it is the same with sculptures”, he wrote in our e-mail correspondence. Few years ago the artist realised the project “New paintings”, in which Styrofoam plates, cut into the size of a large format painting, were smeared with black paint and used as a brush. The paint played here the role of glue, thanks to which the “paintings” were fixed to the walls, however, its layer was revealed by the horizontal and vertical shifts of the plates while being stuck on the walls. In the work “Untitled (Fur)”, made in Stereo in 2011, a rectangle, made of pieces of animal fur stitched together, was dipped in a tar and then thrown on the ground. “I always wanted to give to the material the whole freedom while I’m controlling it” – this declaration describes exactly the artist’s way of thinking. To the questions about the qualities of the material: what “something” is and why it behaves in such and not another way, Rüthemann adds the fundamental: what will happen?
Prepared for the individual exhibition in the Stereo project “Tools” is yet another realization in which Rüthemann carries out disciplined action on the borderland of painting and sculpture, moving the accents and attention of the viewer: first from the final effect to the act of creation, then from the executed work to the used (eponymous) tools.