Robert Rutman was a German visual artist, musician, composer, and instrument builder.
22 Facts About Robert Rutman
1.
2.
Best known for his work with homemade idiophones in his Steel Cello Ensemble, Rutman is regarded as a pioneer of multimedia performance in his mixing of music, sculpture, film, and visual art.
3.
In 1952 Robert Rutman returned to the US and worked as a traveling salesman in Dallas, Texas, before moving to Mexico City to enroll in art school.
4.
Robert Rutman married in Mexico, and the couple had a son, Eric.
5.
In 1962 Robert Rutman returned to New York where he opened a gallery on West Broadway in Greenwich Village called "A Fly Can't Bird But A Bird Can Fly", which presented poetry, theater, music, and visual art as multimedia events.
6.
Robert Rutman's collaborators included the Beat poet Philip Lamantia, who mentions Robert Rutman in his poem, "The night is a space of white marble", and sculptor Constance Demby, with whom he made his first sound sculptures in 1966.
7.
In 1967 Demby and Robert Rutman held several happening-style events that mixed sonic, visual, and performance art centered around big sheets of metal that the artists had found.
8.
In 1967 Robert Rutman moved to Skowhegan, Maine, where he built a house in the woods and established another multimedia gallery.
9.
Robert Rutman made these new instruments from large panels of flexible sheet metal affixed with steel strings or freely swinging rods that he played with a bass or cello bow.
10.
Robert Rutman named one of his creations the steel cello, and another the bow chimes, describing both as "American Industrial folk instruments".
11.
In 1970 Robert Rutman founded the Central Maine Power Music Company as his first ensemble to play these sculptures.
12.
Robert Rutman moved to Boston's then-bohemian Cambridgeport neighborhood and disbanded the CMPMC to found a new, all-steel music group in 1976: the Robert Rutman US Steel Cello Ensemble, whose members included Suzanne Bresler, Rex Morrill, Warren Senders, Jim Van Denakker, and David Zaig.
13.
Robert Rutman's instruments were borrowed by American jazz musician Sun Ra during his 1978 residency at the Modern Theater in Boston; Sun Ra attempted to play both the Bow Chime and Steel Cello during the concerts.
14.
In 1986 Robert Rutman was invited to play at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, which opened the door to many performances and collaborations in Europe, spanning decades.
15.
On his first two tours of Europe, Robert Rutman was joined by fellow American Daniel Orlansky, and the group later expanded to include two Germans, Alexander Dorsch and Stephanie Wolff.
16.
In 1989 Robert Rutman threw himself a farewell party in Cambridge before relocating to his birth city of Berlin where he continued to live and work.
17.
Robert Rutman spent five years teaching himself to throat sing in the style of Tibet's Buddhist monks and began to match his instruments' low tonalities with his voice.
18.
Robert Rutman re-incorporated traditional non-western instruments into Steel Cello Ensemble performances and recordings, including the tabla, Tibetan horn, and didgeridoo.
19.
Robert Rutman toured and recorded with German industrial music group Einsturzende Neubauten.
20.
Robert Rutman's instruments are in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
21.
Robert Rutman's influence is in the work of Jackson Pollock and abstract impressionism, and he is best known for depicting landscapes, nude figures, Catholic themes, and chairs.
22.
Robert Rutman died in a Berlin hospice facility on 1 June 2021 at age 90.