Robert Schad: Die Spur (The Trace)

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.

Wulf Daseking (born 1947) was head of the Office of Urban Planning in Freiburg in the Black Forest from 1984-2012. His term of office included the planning of the Rieselfeld district and the Vauban neighborhood. The Vauban Quarter was presented at the World Expo in 2010 as an energy-reduced, car-free residential area. Martin Seidel (born 1958), Dr. phil., correspondent and guest editor of Kunstforum International, works on the subject of art in architecture as well as art in public space. He has written texts for the German Ministry of Construction, among others, as well as in numerous books and catalogues. Robert Schad (born 1953) is a German steel sculptor. In the years 1974– 80 Robert Schad studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe. Already in 1980 he received his first scholarship for a working stay in Porto/Portugal, further scholarships followed: 1988 Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and 1989– 90 Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Stipendium der Stadt Duisburg. Schad has received the Prize for Drawing of the III Biennial of Contemporary Art, Vila Nova de Cerveira/Portugal, (1982), the XXV. International Prize for Drawing Joan Miró , Barcelona/Spain (1986).