Michael Beutler. Moby Dick

12 augustus 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.