Michael Beutler
Thru November 4
Alte Brücke 2 Maininsel
60594 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Telephone: 49 69 962 44 54-0
Fax: 49 69 962 44 54-24
Beutler’s approach is determinedly experimental. He appropriates the formability and potential uses of different materials and then links them with the given or chosen spatial settings. He is interested in serial production and the functional aspect of building materials, but he usually goes against their original purpose, working out alternative uses for them and developing unintended processing methods. To this end, he devises and constructs his own apparatus and machinery, which he then uses to work on the material as if in an industrial production process. In technical terms, however, Beutler prefers not to get too complex, always sticking to simple mechanical methods so that the formal processing of the material remains easy to identify. As a result, Beutler’s installations and sculptures always have something literal about them and orient themselves towards the ordinary scale of the space. The process of setting up the show is to be understood as an experiment in which the economies of space and material are placed in relation to one another. The rhythm of the production process for the individual components is legible in the surface and layering of the material.
A catalogue with an essay by Angelika Nollert will be published to accompany the exhibition. For further information and guided tours, please write to: info@portikus.de
The exhibition and catalogue have received generous support from UBS
Deutschland AG and Stiftung Polytechnische Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main.
Portikus Frankfurt am Main
Director: Daniel Birnbaum
Curator: Melanie Ohnemus