Ruta Butkute Biography
Performativity, is the key word in Ruta Butkute?s works. If nothing else, every object that she appropriates or creates, assumes a role in her installation. Dancing around each other, occupying the whole length of the exhibition space the objects ask to be identified, to be separated from each other. But on closer look, for the most part they don?t reveal their identity, remain anonymous, only to be categorized by very basic premises such as rubber, steel, stone, textile, weight, mass, texture.
?I don?t know whether it is the work by itself, or my own need for interpretation, but I am tempted with every gaze to search for meaning, subdivide and to trace the origins of these materials. The work invites me to this dance of hiding and seeking, while in the process a very physical, intuitive interaction is born. Strolling through the work, its difficult to find a place to pause, as each material shapes and conditions the next.Despite the heavy nature of most of these materials such as ceramics and plaster, there is a lightness that characterizes her work. A form of play which is catching. Merely by their
placement, these object become suggestive, one can imagine various other setups in the given space, other materials could be added or subtracted, and ultimately the installation feels as if it has no beginning or end. It is limitless. This is the true strength of Butkute?s art. Independently of whatever material she chooses to work with, she manages to transform my sense of these materials and to invite me to a very intuitive and open research of things, where I have nothing to rely on but my own physical senses.
