Rudy Rotter's Museum of Sculpture

"Rudy passed away November 4, 2001, at the age of 88. He was born April 23, 1913, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received degrees from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Marquette University (Milwaukee), served in the Army Dental Corps during World War II, and operated a thriving dental practice in Manitowoc until retiring at the age of 74. It wasn't until age 43 that he began making and exhibiting his art. From his earliest experiments with plaster in the mid-1950's to his more recent drawings, made just months before his death, he produced an estimated 17,000 works of art. Many remain housed in his Museum of Sculpture in downtown Manitowoc. The joy expressed when describing his creative process, and the imaginative energy of his artworks have been an inspiration to all who met him."

http://www.rudyrotter.com/pages/aboutrudy.htm

Rudy Rotter's Museum of Sculpture is no longer open to the general public. The three story warehouse which houses the artwork has been deemed structurally unsound. Rudy's wife was kind enough to allow our class access to these works, but with instruction to proceed with caution.

Upon entering the museum, one would think they had just walked into an old antique shop. Long wooden tables were stretched from wall to wall, each covered with hundreds upon thousands of works, large and small. There was truly an overload of objects set before us, one really had to look closely to see each objects beauty.

The main problem with Rudy's work is that there is simply so much. No museum has room for it all. A selection process which would deem one object valuable, and the other not, would seem kind of ridiculous. Each piece represents a thought process by the artist, both conscious and subconscious. To select individual pieces, one would be judging value based on materials and labor alone. It's kind of like saying apple pie is better than just an apple, solely because of the materials and labor involved. While this may translate to pricing values in the grocery market, what place does it have when speaking about art and its values?

With over 14,000 works of art in the museum to chose from, do we select only the intricate and decadent pieces of work, or do we keep some of the apples for their simplistic perfection?