Bettina Pousttchi
Bettina Pousttchi Allee
27 Apr—28 Jul 2018

Bettina Pousttchi Allee

27 Apr—28 Jul 2018
Buchmann Box
Press release

In the Buchmann Box Bettina Pousttchi (*1971 in Mainz, lives and works in Berlin) will be showing new sculptures under the title Allee / Avenue, which start out from the artist's engagement with public space and its structures.

 

Street furniture, in this case protective tree-barriers, have been brought into a mobile, dynamic form by means of mechanical bending, pressing and twisting. Arranged in pairs or small groups, the tree bars worked in this way are mounted into a sculpture whose volume emerges purely from lines. The functional objects can be recognized easily, even in their changed form, and therefore reconstruct the forces to which they have been subjected. The works cannot be denied the occasional anthropomorphic reference, and so develop a dancerly and sequential quality in their mobility. 

 

The moss or light green colour is reminiscent of camouflage or protective colouring, thus enhancing the optical merger of the individual parts into a self-contained form.

 

Bettina Pousttchi's works often refer to the urban and historical context of a given place. The artist recognizes latent possibilities in objects, places and situations and brings these to the fore in order to create something new; at the same time they reveal aspects of whatever they have been based upon, as Jeremy Strick from the Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas says in his essay “Urban Objects: The Sculpture of Bettina Pousttchi”. And he goes on to say: “Hers is an art where curiosity and imagination cross with research and deft manipulation, wherein the complex meanings of objects, places, and situations become a field for the artist's action.” 

 

Since 2009 Bettina Pousttchi has been realizing monumental, site-specific interventions into buildings in public space, which refer to the historical and urban context of the respective structure. In 2009/2010 the artist realized the photo installation Echo across the full façade of the Temporary Kunsthalle in Berlin, which was a reminder of the Palace of the Republic demolished there only a short time before. At the Schirn Kunsthalle in 2012, her site-specific photo installation Framework could be seen on the windows of the rotunda and the east wing, so referencing the changes in Frankfurt inner city's urban and social context. For the monumental work The City Bettina Pousttchi covered the façade of Wolfsburg Palace with a photomontage of skyscrapers, which were each, at the time of their completion, the highest buildings in the world. She converted the Nasher Sculpture Center by Renzo Piano in Dallas into a Drive Thru Museum and so reacted to the specific setting of the museum, a former public car park, and to the social and urban structure of the city, which was constructed for automobiles.

 

Recently, works by the artist could be seen in a collaboration with Daniel Buren in Kunsthalle Mainz. In addition, over the last two years Bettina Pousttchi has enjoyed solo exhibitions in the Arts Club of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Phillips Collection, both in Washington D.C., as well as previously in the Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas. Kunstmuseum St.Gallen is currently showing a major presentation of new works by Bettina Pousttchi in the Lokremise.

 

Bettina Pousttchi

Bettina Pousttchi

Born 1971 in Mainz. Lives and works in Berlin.

Education
1999/2000 Whitney Independent Studio Program, Whitney Museum, New York
1995-1999 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (with Prof. Gerhard Merz and Prof. Rosemarie Trockel)
1992-1997 Studies in philosophy, art and film history, Universities of Cologne and Bochum
1990-1992 Studies in Fine Art, Université de Paris 
Grants and Awards
2016 Villa Aurora, Los Angeles

2014

Wolfsburg Art Award

2008

TrAIN Research Center for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation, University of the Arts, London
2007 BBAX - Berlin Buenos Aires Art Exchange, Buenos Aires
2005 Provinzial Förderprojekt
2000 Kunststiftung NRW

 

Solo Exhibitions

2024
2023
2022
2020
2015
2013
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001

Group Exhibitions

2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
Selected Collections

MoCA Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Washington DC

Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas

Margulies Collection Miami

Rennie Collection Vancouver

The Arts Club of Chicago

The Phillips Collection Washington DC

Freybe Collection Vancouver

Nasher Collection Dallas

Albertina Vienna

Berlinische Galerie, Museum of Modern Art Berlin

Kunsthalle Bielefeld

Hall Collection New York

Blake Byrne/Skylark Foundation Los Angeles

Levine Collection Washington DC

Wemhöner Collection Herford/Berlin

Kadist Collection Paris

Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany

University of Cologne

Von-der-Heydt Museum Wuppertal

Absolut Art Collection Stockholm

Wolfsburg City Art Gallery

MMAG Foundation Amman

Kunstmuseum St.Gallen

Museum Reinhard Ernst

Miura Art Collection, Celadna

Sammlung ADAC, München

RAJA Contemporary Art Collection, Paris

Davis Museum, Wellesley, USA

Rhine Riverside Gallery, Mainz

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto