Edvardas Racevicius: MENSCHEN UND BÄUME

THE RUGGED CARVER FROM LITHUANIA How the former priest candidate Edvardas Racevicius became a carver of small-scale wood sculptures Denise Wiedner Edvardas Racevicius, born in Klaipeda, Lithuania in 1974, first came in contact with art and its methodology in his childhood. Already at the age of nine his education in composition began at an art grammar school in his birthplace. He was fascinated by the folkloristic art of his homeland, where you would suddenly perceive an angel which had been fastened to a tree, in the middle of the woods. And he also carved the traditional icons common in Lithuania countless times. The bond between humans and nature, object and image is deep; using wood as artistic material is an afflatus. Not even attending the seminary from 1992 until 1995 could stop his passion for wood carving. On the contrary, it set his wits to artistic carving even more intensely, using one of the oldest craft materials. Though he had decided against becoming a priest, he nevertheless graduated in theology from the University of Educational Sciences in Vilnius in 1997. Subsequently, his curriculum vitae lists only the profession of the sculptor, who he has essentially ever been. „In my whole life, I never worked, never learned any other profession, and do not possess any other talent,” he says of himself. Statements like this make him a much envied free spirit not yet a fixed cog in the big, unpredictable wheel of the art trade. Although a couple of gallery owners have knocked on his door. Nowadays, Racevicius works and lives in Greifswald, the city mostly associated by friends of the arts as the birthplace of the early Romanticism painter Caspar David Friedrich. In 2002, he permanently moved for love to Germany. His oeuvre can be divided into figurative and abstract works. The latter, however, he mostly formed in wood carving symposia, which he has attended nearly annually since 2002. Those sculptures are often inspired by flora and its natural processes of growth and change. All the sculptures are exclusively designed for outdoor positioning. Actually, the artist prefers figurative work which he can, for one thing, do faster – longterm projects do not seem to bring him much joy – and, for another thing, experimental work and absolute artistic freedom outside academic events are very appealing to him. The results displayed here in this catalogue were part of exhibitions and have in some cases found their way into exhibition halls and also into collectors’ drawing rooms. We are presented with works in a variety of timber – from poplar, linden tree, cherry wood, to oak and fir – which entail the most important criteria for the making of the sculpture. The wood decides the complexion of the figurine, and also the way of processing and its final expression. Between 2008 and the present a considerable number of figurines have been carved which are partly, though rarely, titled. Often, Racevicius’ figurines are painted like inconspicuous but accurately dressed persons, reminding the recipient of sculptures by Stephan Balkenhol. Balkenhol’s gentlemen in white shirts call into mind the dress code of banker employees in leisure-time style. Leaving aside all alleged propinquity between the human figurines of Balkenhol and Racevicius, they could not differ more in respect to genesis and aesthetic function. Balkenhol approaches the material with a preformed idea of a figurine to tell deliberate stories with it. In the case of Racevicius, the figurine emerges gradually from the crooked branches. Any story evolving from it follows up. Only when the painting is applied, human and nature are joined in a contrastive manner. The „unpainted works are not as effective”. His materials are gathered from the city council, when the city’s green is trimmed and cropped. This „waste” is his basis. He preferably works with poplar and linden tree due to their homogenous colour and easy processing, but also branches and wooden kitchen tools find their way into his studio. His carved artworks are all of one piece, always playing with the given material. Thus a male figurine from 2012 reveals itself with excrescences on his arms like pincers of a crayfish; another tiny version (6 x 1.9 x 1.3 cm) from the same year, on the other hand, is looking down on the whole world from a broomstick. Central to the artist, who would not at all describe himself as an intellectual, are existential aspects. Universal questions such as „Who am I?”, „Where do I come from?”, and „Where am I heading?” are so deeply ingrained in humankind that these naturally appear in processes of metamorphosis between humans and nature in Racevicius’ works. Exploring the borderland adjoining to the raw wood on one end and the sculptured figurine on the other is one of the core aspects of his art. A rather easygoing handling of transitions, barriers, and our difficile perception gives birth to figurines oscillating between jest and grotesque. For example, looking at the figurine with a split head (untitled, 2013), we perceive the humor but “also a little pain in it”. The absurd and bizarre compositions draw their strength from the manipulation, the fragmentation, and rough handling of the timber as well as the play of the proportions, surfaces and structures mirroring the recognisable but diffracted world to us. The – as usually, dressed in black and white – gentleman who has a bundle of sticks literally bellying out, illustrates, as well as the figurine literally losing its head (untitled, 2013), that „the grotesque tends to emphasise all that is the material biological foundation and mortality of the human body” (Elisheva Rosen). Racevicius’ creatures do not only speak of their potential of the grotesque but also of an enormous “metamorphic power”, as Martin Seel once described it. They shock, seem brutal, threatening and surreal; appear violent though they do not display direct acts of violence and make us, observers who are used to joke about death and mortality when embracing art, strangely enough, smile.