Bettina Pousttchi | Directions | Buchmann Galerie | 10.09.-30.10.2021

Following her exhibition In Recent Years (2019/20) at Berlinische Galerie, which provided a comprehensive overview of the artist’s sculptural and photographic work, the installation Panorama at KINDL’s Kesselhaus (2019/20) and the large photographic installation Amplifier this summer on the main façade of Konzerthaus Berlin, the exhibition at the Buchmann Galerie focuses on new sculptures, wall reliefs and photographic works.

In the new works, Bettina Pousttchi deals with the objects and sign systems of the continually changing urban space as an environment for living.

Directions is the title of a new group of works by the artist that is the focus of the exhibition. It is a series of wall reliefs made out of cut and colour-coated steel, whose shape is derived from street signs in the form of arrows. These urban sign systems, which we often perceive only unconsciously, appear as if they have been cut out of their environment and placed in a new context of meaning. Mounted at a slight distance from the wall, the cut-out objects seem to float. Their sharp-edged form makes them oscillate between a kind of pictogram and graffiti. The regulative function of these signs and their influence on the movement of bodies in public space are called into question—a single direction is extended by multiple directions.

The Directions series continues the artist’s interest in the ordering structures placed in public space – as seen in other groups of works, including the sculpture series presented here Vertical Highways, which were shown for the first time at the Berlinische Galerie – Museum of Modern Art Berlin. The artist makes the sculptures from crash barriers, which she mechanically deforms and joins together to form upright works. The individual crash barriers remain recognizable even in their altered forms, and give an idea of the forces that have acted upon them. The anthropomorphic features and the monochrome colours merge the individual parts into a coherent new form. The vertical orientation of the normally horizontally crash barriers changes the usual spatial order and gives the sculptures an architectural reference. In the sequential use of the inceptive object lies a conceptual connection to Minimal Art and also a reference to the Readymades of Marcel Duchamp.

The photographic work Column shows in subtle contrasts the base of a monumental stone column almost life-size. As in her façade works, photography is used here on the scale of architecture. The work combines the artist’s interest in architectural structures, as seen in her photo installation Amplifier at the Konzerthaus Berlin this summer, with her independent photographic visual language. The placement of the elongated horizontal format on the floor and leaning against the wall gives the photograph the character of an installation.

In Paris in mid-October three sculptures from the Vertical Highways series will be presented prominently in the Jardin des Tuileries in front of the Musée du Louvre as part of the exhibition project Hors les Murs. A solo exhibition of Bettina Pousttchi’s work will open in December at the Arp Museum in Remagen near Bonn to mark the purchase and permanent inst