Michael Beutler.
Moby Dick April 17, 2015 - September 6, 2015
Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of the Present

From April 17 to September 6, 2015, the Nationalgalerie in Hamburger Bahnhof is dedicating a solo exhibition to the Berlin-based artist Michael Beutler (born 1976) in the museum's historical hall.

Beutler's installations occupy and transform spaces through sculptural interventions that open up alternative ways of perceiving space and new ways of acting to the audience. The cross-genre works are seen as reactions to the architectural and social structures and the specific situation at the respective exhibition location. The questioning of industrial production processes and the associated economies, as well as the thematization of a conscious and autonomous attitude towards the materials and processes used, also form central elements in Michael Beutler's works. Industrially manufactured or processed materials such as paper, metal, wood or plastics are used by the artist and shaped into space-filling components using specially developed tools and equipment and with the involvement of third parties. Similar to an experimental arrangement, the processual development of the work creates a state of provisional uncertainty, which Beutler sees as a necessary, productive part of his work.

In the exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, Beutler not only elevates its historical hall to the protagonist of the show, but rather transforms it into a place of continuous production, a “factory hall museum”. Used at the same time as a production site and presentation site, the exhibition site is subject to constant development, which can be directly experienced by museum visitors through various moments of participation. The creation process of this artistic work is made visible and can be followed by visitors from the beginning in the form of different “construction phases”. Michael Beutler's project, which takes up the entire hall, can be classified as part of a series of site- and room-specific exhibitions in the Hamburger Bahnhof, the focus of which was also on the examination of the exhibition space and its conditions.