Robert Schad: Die Spur

Robert Schad had his studio in Freiburg before settling in the Dé partement Haute-Saô ne and in the north of Portugal. Conceived in 2018 and erected in 2021, the latest work, DIE SPUR (The Trace), was the result of a competition for art-in-architecture for the new building of the Institute for Disease Modeling and Targeted Medicine (IMITATE), a research center for genetic engineering at the University Freiburg. On the street-facing side of the building, some forty pieces of steel are assembled into a 15 x 27 x 7 meter transversely supported airy structure that draws a line meandering in free rhythms through the space and, for all its large size and heaviness, unyieldingness and angularity of the source material, does nevertheless conjure up impressions somewhere between a plant-like natural grace, sculptural expressionist dance, and a lightning or electrical discharge. The Trace addresses the entire human being, our senses and our consciousness, which cannot be separated from internalized historical, artistic and bodily experience. With that piece, Robert Schad has once again created a work that balances form, content, and substance in an excellently, brilliant presentation.