Thomas Schütte: United Enemies, 2011
Photo: Jason Wyche, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY

Thanks to the Fuhrman Family Foundation, Public Art Fund installed Thomas Schutte: United Enemies for its spring and summer season in 2013.

With United Enemies, Schütte took a conventional form and made it relevant. His colossal figures did not stand heroically atop a classical pedestal but seemed to stagger, earthbound, on tripods of bundled poles. Struggling to be rid of its mate, each figure was nevertheless incapable of standing alone. The sculptures reflected potent contemporary metaphors: chiseled giants that simultaneously resonate with the mythological, the political, and the personal.