It all began a few years ago when a collector couple who are friends of mine asked me to develop a sculpture for their unique park garden, which was laid out by a famous German landscape architect in the post-war years.
I wrestled with myself for a long time, but then came to the conclusion that a sculpture solitaire would rather harm this ambience than grow together into a harmonious whole in the sense of the symbiosis of garden culture and sculpture.
As an alternative, I then created a sculpture for the garden area in front of the house and was able to convince the collector couple of this. During the production phase of this sculpture, however, I asked myself whether my opinion on the impossibility of sculptural decoration of the park garden was actually correct - and came up with the idea of developing a horizontal sculpture that followed the topography of the terrain or ran counter to it.
For this stainless steel sculpture, I used the lens shape that I had already chosen in the 'Invader' series as the ideal form for connecting space and surface, i.e. 3D and 2D. However, I dispensed with the connection of the lens volumes through visible bar systems and connected the lenses directly with each other through a technical trick using welding technology, so that a coherent whole was created that does not seem to follow any inner 'order' - the 'Cultivator' was born!
But why 'Cultivator'? When the finished sculpture lay there in front of my team and me in the studio, it reminded us of an agricultural tool for breaking up the soil or smoothing the plough furrow, the harrow - and the English word for harrow is 'cultivator'. But in German, too, the 'Kultivator' is quite a common term for an agricultural or horticultural implement.
Speaking of lenses - technically speaking, a lens consists of two so-called curved disc halves, which are then welded together in the central axis. I had already purchased these curved discs for the 'Invader series' from the Siegen-based company Jünger Bödenpresswerk, a highly specialised company supplying the transport, beverage and chemical industries.
transport, beverage and chemical industries. At my insistence to the sales staff, I met the owner of Jünger, Timo Franke, immediately after the completion of 'Cultivator I' - a stroke of luck for the further development of the series.
Timo Franke rationally quickly recognised the added value for his product when it turned into art in the 'Invader series'. But more importantly, he fell in love with the 'Cultivator I' right away and called it his own. This may sound romantic, but it means much more, because from that moment on Timo Franke personally takes care of every single piece of curved disc, which means very different degrees of curvature and ultimately optimal quality.
In the meantime, 25 'Cultivator' sculptures have been created with the 'Cultivator Roundabout' for Tepanje/Slovenia, not including models and small formats such as the edition for Proidee. Most of them are in the possession of collectors between San Francisco, São Paulo, Asia and Europe, the further development of the series has already begun, it remains exciting!
It is about breaking up, disentangling, loosening up; bringing art and thus also the concept of art into
a different, expanded context.
Art should no longer be perceived and interpreted in isolation, but should stand in holistic
coherence.
Thomas Schönauer achieves this with his works, not only in the spatial context, but also in the
context of content.
The Cultivators are created from an interplay of individual lenticular discs, which are captured and
conceived on the basis of aesthetic, static and not least energetic aspects. Different sizes, angles of
positioning, connecting surfaces of the individual elements form an art object that is intended to
enter into correspondence with the (outside) space. Arrangement, materiality and composition
define a sculptural structure of tension which, when viewed from different perspectives, sometimes
conveys an apparently floating lightness and sometimes a monumental shape.
The presence of both directions, visually perceived by the viewer, united in one work of art,
reinforces the artist's intention: to trigger an unprejudiced perception, a "letting oneself be affected",
an individual experience.
It is about the idea of breaking free from the humanly constructed principle of linearity, of one-
dimensionality, and recognising the diversity of our being and creation - inspired by the organic,
uneven structure of nature.
Schönauer's "Cultivators" allow a change of perspective!
And without any instruction leaflets or supposed interpretation aids; only the "emotio" is the
triggering momentum of personal experience and the associated individual mental feedback.
Only in this way can contexts be reinterpreted and rethought.
Looking at the sculptures can bring about ways of seeing, sensations for change, without the need for
great turmoil.
The "Cultivators" in the context of (outdoor) space connect the compellingly necessary coexistence
of culture and nature, enable the emergence of other perspectives, imply the necessity of breaking
up - towards holistic perception!
On 31 August 2022, a number of thought leaders and masterminds of our time met for an
exchange on the relevance and growing necessity of art in public space in
times of international crises and the paradigm shift taking place as a result.
The conversation took place in Thomas Schönauer's studio in Ratingen near Düsseldorf.
Participants were the interior designer and architect Claudia de Bruyn, who
lives privately in Ratingen but is internationally successful with her office, the
German landscape architect Andreas Kipar, who, with over 150 employees in
offices in Milan, Lugano, Vienna and Düsseldorf, the founder and chairman of
the Foundation for Art and Culture in Bonn and director of the Duisburg
Küppersmühle Museum, Walter Smerling, and the painter and sculptor
Thomas Schönauer, whom his close friend Frank Dopheide once described as
the 'engineering artist'.
As a quiet but highly concentrated journalist who summarised the conversation in a
remarkable article in the newspaper 'Rheinische Post', Andrea Bindmann sat
at the round table.
Quotes from the participants
Schönauer "The linearity of thought and action is finally over. Even the last backwoods
decision-maker should have realised that by now. We are in the midst of a
paradigm shift."
Smerling "Art in public space can make us capable of dialogue. We demonstrate the public
face with art, unfortunately we have to realise that numerous public decision
makers show very little interest in this demonstration."
De Bruyn "Art is presented and taught in schools from an early age as something 'nice to
have', as a luxury rather than a necessity. This is where the misunderstanding
in the acceptance of art in public spaces comes from."
Kipar "In the pandemic, urban space has become more human again. Art, as a representative
of culture, connects the theme of human nature with the urban cityscape."
Smerling "One of the consequences of the lack of art education in schools is that aesthetic
sensibility is less and less visible. When the citizen is confronted with
something he doesn't immediately understand, he feels harassed instead of
enriched."
De Bruyn "What is culture, what is our country proud of? The individualism increasing
through social media is a great evil. Everyone only knows their personal perspective and that goes hand in hand with taste - and taste is the death of
all things"
Schönauer "The paradigm shift comes along like a tsunami and causes fear. And fear is the
cause of aggression, among other things against art in public space."
Kipar "Designing the urban landscape is not about single issues, but we take a holistic
approach. In the past, art was perceived in isolation; in the future, perception
will be holistic, however, we honestly lack the means yet. Certainly one
answer is the 15-minute city."
Smerling "We need a lobby for art in public spaces. I thank the artists who keep going
despite the lack of this lobby."
De Bruyn "There is far too little awareness that art in public space belongs to everyone, to all
of us. Otherwise there would also be a much higher duty of care."
Schönauer "When the quality of the artwork and the urban environment match, then a new
identity emerges, which the people living in it feel and continue to cultivate
with it."
Kipar "The Cultivator sculptures are symbolic of the necessary cracks and fractures in the city
and the need to break open the horizontally and vertically 'slabbed city'."
On 11.11.2022, Thomas Anstots, President - business line, Advanced Materials, Outokumpu,
Timo Franke, owner and Managing Director of Jünger Bödenpresswerk and
Thomas Schönauer met in his studio in Ratingen near Düsseldorf.
The main purpose of the meeting was to get to know each other personally and to exchange
ideas about future cooperation. Over the course of one and a half hours, an
almost friendly conversation naturally developed about the material stainless
steel that unites the three of them, about the so-called business, about the
continuation of joint communicative measures that had already begun and
had now been agreed upon, and about 'God and the world'.
The photos speak their own language about the atmosphere...
Quotes
Anstots: "We are currently in the process of giving the Outukumpu brand a new shine and
gaining greater awareness. So a cooperation with such a well-known artist
makes a lot of sense."
Schönauer: "Every new sculpture is always a bit of your own baby. It is a process of
identification that naturally includes the suppliers of the materials and the
people/circumstances of their further processing. For me, at least, that also
makes up the spirit of a sculpture!"
Franke: "For a highly specialised, manageably sized family business like ours, delivery
reliability is of existential importance, especially in times of crisis."
Anstots: "Stainless steel as a material is also underestimated in ecological terms. Of course,
production emits Co2, but the recycling potential is about 95%, which is far
ahead of many other products. Especially since the life span of the product
itself is close to infinity, if you disregard the application context."
Schönauer: "For a sculptor working with stainless steel, there can be no more ideal situation
than to find a match in all special wishes and requirements regarding the
material, but also the further processing up to the surface design."
Franke: "Curved panes of stainless steel accompany everyone every day, but they are not
perceived in their importance. No liquid goods transport, no beer, no wine
production, no medicines and not a gram of chocolate without the use of
domed discs. First a Schönauer has to come along who takes our product out
of anonymity and breathes new life into it (laughs)."
FRIEND AND ALLY
Nature, art and public space
We are experiencing an epoch in which nature is finally moving to the centre of
planning and design thinking. Only by using natural features and processes can
the socio-ecological and cultural challenges of the present be met in our cities
as well as in rural areas, and paths into the future can be laid in planning
terms. These challenges include, among others, issues such as climate change,
energy security, human health or strengthening biodiversity. At the same time,
respectful treatment of cultural heritage is part of this. It is a matter of
developing and cultivating productive landscapes in which people feel at home
in their social and cultural spaces and connected to nature. In this epochal
transformation process, art in public space, far too often underestimated as
décor, can play an active role - and the artist can take the place of an alliance
partner.
For me as an urban planner and landscape architect, Thomas Schönauer is
such an alliance partner, both as an artist and as a forward thinker. The free
creativity of art, not bound to any purpose, as expressed in his Cultivator
sculptures, and the planning exploration and development of landscape spaces
are two sides of the same coin. Creativity freely developed out of context and
the result-oriented will to change come together in the cultivation of urban
landscapes and promote quality of life.
It is necessary to occupy energy points in urban landscapes. With the help of a
cultural acupuncture, as it were, the dynamics of open spaces developed by
nature can be made clear. Urban spaces have been redeveloped and
functionalised, now it is time for them to be de-rationalised and emotionalised
through nature. Cultivator sculptures by Thomas Schönauer, which have an
emotional effect at such chakra points, bring energy into the city that we
urgently need for its development. While nature plays the role of a moderator
of the development of urban landscapes, art thus takes on the role of a
communicator that powerfully anchors and secures the transformation in the
public consciousness.
I got to know Thomas Schönauer while working on the Luther Garden in
Wittenberg. He succeeded in giving the park a centre with his sky cross, in
grounding it as well as elevating it. He created a work of contemporary art that
at the same time expresses timeless modernity. Through the innovative
thinking that characterises him as an artist, I found a like-minded partner and
friend. Innovations that are also a decisive factor in his expoxy resin painting.
Unlike the necessarily precisely planned sculptures, they test out a potential,
remain open in spite of all artistic intent. The cultural scientist David Behning
once put it this way: "A world full of (perhaps only apparent) interactions,
connections and interweavings reveals itself, too complex and rich in forms and
colours, too diverse and delicate to be fully aware of it." Is this not a world that
is also found in nature? Isn't the landscape too diverse and intricate, full of
interactions, connections and interweavings, to be fully aware of it? And
doesn't nature, in the process of slowly growing and changing over time,
ultimately remain open to absorbing and processing new influences?
The aim is to create places for a sharing society and a strong togetherness. It is
about a departure into a new time, in which we build bridges into a new way of
thinking, precisely with the help of art, as Thomas Schönauer makes it
available to us, in order to become part of nature again, which we had despised
as foreign for too long.
Project developments can be triggered by very different initial impulses. Sometimes they
arise literally overnight, a forgotten thought, perhaps reactivated by a dream, forges itself
into an ensemble of thoughts, which can certainly give rise to a project.
But wait - how do I actually define 'project'? A project can be the beginning of a whole new
cycle, be it sculpture or painting, working on a large self-imposed or externally imposed task
or simply the challenge of developing a painting or sculpture for a certain 'genus loci'.
I enjoy doing all of these, though the latter is my favourite. And this is what I would like to
focus on in this chapter with a few examples and these words, focussing on the current
sculpture series 'Cultivator'. Project developments or solutions to set tasks rarely arise in the
studio. The ideas, as already mentioned, bubble up in one's sleep, while cycling, hiking or
wherever.
And then it usually has to happen quickly, so that the force of the initial idea and the
thoughts developed on it are not diminished by anything - and sometimes you burn your
fingers in the process...
Project developments and solutions in connection with international competitions are then
somewhat tougher processes, as the example chosen in this chapter of the competition to
create a sculpture for the MRCC in Wiesbaden should show. Even if here, as always, an initial
idea sets the direction, major coordination processes within the team are as necessary as
they are fruitful. In all questions of urban planning/landscape architecture context, my set
partner is Andreas Kipar and his team from LAND, as in the case of the RMCC.
Image caption
1 Unfortunately I was a bit overzealous when working with the hot glue - 3rd degree burns
on my fingers.
2-5 In a long telephone conversation with Andreas Kipar we discussed the development of a
large sculpture in the new MINT university complex in the former EXPO site in Milan. No
sooner said than done, in our Tyrolean retreat over the Christmas holidays I cut and glued
together a basic cardboard model. The sculpture takes up the sun canopy over the entire
Magistrale that gave shape to the EXPO...
6-8 Preliminary studies for 'Cultivator 25' also made of cardboard, also created overnight in
our Tyrolean refuge.
9 In a competition as demanding as the sculpture for the RMCC, the first step is of course to
visit and feel the vibrations of the genus loci. Andreas Kipar and I 'tick' in a very similar way -
if the energies at the location are not right, then it's better to leave the project alone.
10 Sometimes the basic idea comes about simply by looking at the existing model material.
In the case of the RMCC, this was also very helpful.
11-12 And then it can happen very quickly - the ideas become materialised scale models
13 The metal model is part of the presentation package, but also serves our 3D experts as a
template for the simulations for the plan visualisations
14 At the end, there is an entire presentation plan that places the sculpture in the overall
urban planning and architectural structure and tries to explain it. The entire visualisation is
the job of the team from LAND
Isn't it usually like this? You discover a sculpture or a painting, feel addressed and begin
to take an interest in the artist. With Thomas Schönauer it was different for me.
I got to know Thomas in a circle of friends, which he joined at some point, in a circle in
which people are interested in each other and in what he does professionally, in which
people also exchange ideas about "God and the world", but in which they are also
actively involved in aid projects.
I still remember exactly on which occasion Thomas really caught my eye for the first
time. They weren't talking about art, and certainly not about his, but rather about
Sisyphus, who, according to Homer, was condemned to roll a heavy stone up a
mountain with great effort, but which slipped away when he reached the top, only to roll
back down the mountain again. And so it went for the poor fellow day in and day out.
No end in sight.
According to the dictionary, the drudgery of Sisyphus therefore stands for a pointless,
futile effort, hard work that never reaches its goal. Obvious, isn't it?
Everyone at the table knew this story, of course, and all agreed that Sisyphus must have
been a pitiful individual who deserved pity and sympathy. All of them?
No, it was Thomas who said that one could also imagine this Sisyphus as a happy
person. For conquering mountains, facing hardships, knowing what to do the next day
could also be seen as something very fulfilling. And then he drew from the full. He gave
the example of Camus, who had dealt with the fate of Sisyphus in an essay, but also in
other works, just as there were very different interpretations of this myth in literature
and art.
The others at the table listened attentively and were amazed. They had just met Thomas
Schönauer, the philosopher, and did not know at that time that this side of their friend
would reveal itself again and again in the future. At the same time, they suspected that
the poet and thinker Gottfried von Strasbourg, a lesser-known contemporary of Walther
von der Vogelweide, might actually have been right in his now proverbial statement that
a sharp mind can certainly harmonise with artistic abilities.
From then on, I sought out the conversation with Thomas, even before I had taken a
closer look at his art. And in doing so, I got to know another side of this interesting
person, talking to someone who had travelled the world with his eyes wide open and
with the greatest interest in the cultures he encountered, in the people he met, their
living conditions, their joys and sorrows, but who had also lived and worked for a long
time in very different places on this earth. Although he has been living in Düsseldorf
with his wife and children for many years, he is a citizen of the world who does not
allow himself to be guided by negative prejudices when he encounters foreigners, but
who courageously confronts them and stands up for the poor, the oppressed and the
discriminated against. Such an attitude can justifiably be called a virtue, one that is once
again particularly in demand in our country today.
Thomas Schönauer certainly has a special relationship with Brazil. His wife comes from
there, and he even wanted to live there permanently with his family, but in the end this
was not possible due to the instability of the country and the resulting uncertainties.
With his family and good friends, however, he is still socially engaged there. Brazil, its
architecture and art are still an inspiration for his artistic work, and Brazil is also a
country in which his artworks are held in high esteem - by collectors, in galleries and
museums as well as in public spaces.
This brings us at last to his artistic work, and even more to Thomas the artist, or the
engineering artist, as he is often called, a designation he accepts but which I think falls
short, but certainly one that has a lot to do with the Cultivator series, which is the
subject of this book.
Why Thomas calls the series this can only be guessed at. Cultivator, originally Latin, a
loanword found in English as well as in German, stands for cultivator, rake. In my
childhood we used one of these in my parents' garden; it could be extended from one to
a total of seven "teeth" - as my father called the links.
Perhaps Thomas wants to evoke associations with these garden tools and what they do,
or with the larger machines of the same name used in agriculture. That he would have
thought of Churchill's Cultivator No. 6, on the other hand, can be ruled out. This was a
24-metre-long, 130-tonne behemoth developed at the beginning of the Second World
War by the Royal Navy with significant encouragement from Churchill, then First Lord
of the Admiralty, to dig deep trenches in which soldiers and equipment could advance
on enemy lines, protected from rifle and artillery fire.
The name of the line is probably not that important either. But perhaps what interests
me as an art lover, not an art connoisseur, is what fascinates me about the Cultivators:
On the one hand, it is the impression of lightness they convey, although the viewer
knows about the heaviness of the processed material and also guesses what kind of
conceptual and constructive intelligence as well as, not least, perfection of
craftsmanship it takes to create them and make them appear that way; on the other hand,
it is also the feeling that each of the Cultivators can only be created when the artist
knows, or at least has a clear idea of, exactly where the respective sculpture is to be
placed. Because the Cultivator clearly takes up references to its surroundings and
creates new ones. For me, each of them, although belonging to a series, is an
independent, distinctive work of art and also highly aesthetic.
However, I do not want to close my brief remarks on the person without expressing my
great respect for the entrepreneur Thomas Schönauer. He does not embody the kind of
artist who can typically produce his works in the safe expectation that the galleries will
take care of it. At least with the Cultivators, that certainly wouldn't work. What is
needed here is the acquisition of
This requires the acquisition of commissions and the financial means necessary for
production, as well as collaboration with recognised representatives of other professions
such as landscape architects or urban planners. This can only be done if you think and
act like an entrepreneur who is prepared to take risks. Thomas also does this in an
impressive way.
I share his joy about this book. May it find many attentive readers and viewers. And
may Thomas Schönauer continue to be the tireless Sisyphus who finds fulfilment in his
work.
Mettmann, September 2022
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