How To Make Sculpture Move

Sculpture, choreography, and installation are the main pillars of Ruta Butkute's art practice. Her method is guided by a reflective approach to the physicality of sculpture and the relation to the performers, audiences, and the spaces in which they interact. Departing from the principle that an object has a function hidden inside, she redefines the origins and functions of materials and forms in order to evoke their intricate capacity to move. During her Rijksakademie residency (2014-15) in Amsterdam, Butkute started to translate sculpture into different mediums. Over the course of several years, she developed a new medium she calls 'sculptural performance', which places objects, sculptures, and space in a transformative field, enabling the direction of movement.