Michael Beutler. Moby Dick

About

From April 17 - September 6, 2015, Hamburger Bahnhof is dedicating a solo exhibition in the historical hall of the museum to the artist Michael Beutler (b. 1976, lives and works in Berlin). Beutler's installations occupy and transform spaces through sculptural interventions that open viewers to alternative perceptions, new artistic methods and strategies. The cross-genre works are intended to be understood as reactions to architectural and social structures, as well as to specific situations at respective sites within the exhibition. Central elements in Michael Beutler's works are also underscored by his analysis of industrial production processes and the economies associated with them, as well as the thematic development of a conscious and autonomous attitude to the materials and methods he uses. The artist incorporates industrially manufactured or processed materials, such as paper, metal, wood or plastic, shaping them into large-scale building elements with specially developed tools and apparatuses, as well as through the involvement of third parties. Resembling an experimental setup, a condition of provisional uncertainty is created in the process-like development of his installations, which Beutler seizes as a necessary, productive component of his work.

In this exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, Beutler goes beyond simply elevating the historical hall into the show's protagonist; instead he transforms it into a place of continuous production, into a "museum workshop." Used simultaneously as a production center and a presentation site, the exhibition venue will be subject to continuous development that museum visitors can take part in and experience through different phases of its evolution. The creation process of this artistic work will be made visible step by step, and visitors can follow the different "phases of construction" from the beginning. Michael Beutler's project, which will consume the entire hall, can be organized into a series of spatial and site-specific exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof, with focuses that also lie in dialogue with the exhibition space and its structural features.

Curator: Melanie Roumiguière, Assistant Curator: Greta Hoheisel

The exhibition is made possible by the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie.

Supported by Volkswagen