Peter Otto, 'Twisted Totem', 2004

Peter Otto, Twisted Totem, 2004
Location: Centrum Den Haag: Spui - Grote Marktstraat - Kalvermarkt

A strange bronze creature with remarkably recognizable attributes.Ambiguous and at the same time unclear, that is what irritates a viewer about Peter Otto's (1955) sculpture “Twisted Totem” in the center of The Hague.Otto wanted precisely to make a sculpture that “openly incites mockery or spitting, against which one can water or, as in Mecca, throw pebbles to expel Satan.An image that offers access to imperfection and unfinishedness, that offers opportunity to make a wish or lay a flower.Hence the details with a mug, a plate (offerings to gods and ancestors), the walking stool for the paralyzed foot, the gun that becomes not a gun, but a hand gesture, a long nose perhaps.

The artist created this pedestal sculpture as a response to the many sculptures in public spaces that mark an event or person, that serve to commemorate, worship or commemorate or that are there merely for beautification.The work was inspired by the so-called “Talking Statues” in Rome.

There, since the 16th century, sculptures have been present in streets and squares where the townspeople can spout their criticism of politics and society in the form of poems and texts.

In his early paintings Otto drew inspiration from the “Wild Painting” of artists such as Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz, in the mid-1980s he became more impressed by the work of American painter Philip Guston (1913-1980). Otto particularly admires the radical way Guston combined classical themes with images from everyday culture.

As with Guston, with Otto his knowledge of art history, the harshness of reality and everyday trivialities come together. The result is an intriguing world where order and chaos, good and evil coexist and intermingle: “Twisted Totem.