Kilian Rüthemann
Acht Säulen für den Winter, 2014
Inspired by the architecture of classical antiquity, Rüthemann’s sculpture brings the Mediterranean to Gstaad. The palms, which represent the desire to bring the warmth of the southern climate into the colder north, are arranged as columns. Like those of a partially ruined temple they stand erect but devoid of function, serial monuments to a future that never could be.
Kilian Rüthemann was born in St. Gallen in 1979. He studied stone sculpting at Zuzwil, St. Gallen (1997–2001) and Fine Arts and Media Art at Academy of Art and Design, Basel (2002–2005). Rüthemann makes sculptures using simple substances such as salt, sugar, bitumen or cement, interacting these with the fabric of the building that support them — the walls and floor of a gallery, its steps, windows and lighting, for instance — to form architectural interventions that alter the function of their known ingredients, allowing structural properties to expound their own logic.
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