With Tail of Fire #1 (2025), Ruta Butkutė presents a new sculptural work that continues her ongoing exploration of the relationship between choreography and matter. The piece consists of a long, narrow clay beam, fired in a traditional Japanese anagama wood kiln. Through this demanding process, fire, ash, and time inscribe the surface, leaving behind a layered skin that is as much process as it is form.
For Butkutė, sculpture is never a mere object. It should be understood as a score for movement, a script that carries a potential choreography. In earlier performances and installations, she employed sculptural elements as instruments to direct bodies or as temporary architectures guiding the audience through space. Tail of Fire #1 follows this logic: precise and measured in its horizontal line, yet volatile and alive in its surface.
The result is a work that makes the tension between order and unpredictability tangible. Not an industrially perfect beam, but a sculpture that retains the intensity of fire and the gestures of process. The object emerges as a condensed fragment of movement – a smouldering trace where choreography and matter converge.