Continuing our Sightings series of installations and interventions, the Nasher Sculpture Center will present the first American museum exhibition of German-Iranian artist, Bettina Pousttchi, open April 12 through July 13, 2014.
DALLAS, Texas (February 19, 2014) – Continuing our Sightings series of installations and interventions, the Nasher Sculpture Center will present the first American museum exhibition of German-Iranian artist, Bettina Pousttchi, open April 12 through July 13, 2014.
"We're delighted to present the American museum debut for this important artist" notes Nasher Sculpture Center director Jeremy Strick. "As is characteristic of her work, Bettina Pousttchi's Sightings exhibition will provide historical insight while offering a novel and compelling aesthetic experience."
For the past 15 years, Pousttchi has created artworks in a variety of media including photography, video, and sculpture. These works often examine the constructed nature and tenuousness of memory. In recent projects, including Echo (2009-10) at the Temporare Kunsthalle in Berlin and Framework (2011) at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Pousttchi has presented photography at the scale of architecture, lending it a sense of monumentality and presence normally associated with large-scale sculpture.
For her exhibition at the Nasher, Pousttchi expands on the relationship between photography, sculpture, and architecture to create a unique environment that draws on the history of the Nasher Sculpture Center site. The artist will transform one of the upstairs galleries into a closed urban streetscape recalling the gasoline service stations and parking lots that formerly occupied the Nasher location dating back to when Ross Avenue was known as “Automobile Row” in the middle of the 20th century. The floor of the gallery will be “blacktopped” and painted to resemble a street, creating a “drive thru” art gallery for selected works from the Nasher Collection. A photographic pattern reminiscent of expanding scissor gates often used to protect storefronts and automobile repair shops will be applied to the glass facades of the gallery, obscuring views into and out of the space. In addition, several of Pousttchi’s sculptures made from police barricades and street bollards will occupy the spaces surrounding the gallery.
Born in Mainz, Germany in 1971, Pousttchi studied with artists Rosemarie Trockel and Gerhard Merz at the esteemed Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum in New York in the 1990s. Since 1997, she has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2009, the Kunsthalle Basel in 2011, and the major projects mentioned above. This summer, Pouttschi will create a site-specific installation on the Wolfsburg Castle and present a solo exhibition at Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg accompanying the Wolfsburg Award.
About the Nasher Sculpture Center;
Open since 2003 and located in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, the Nasher Sculpture Center is home to one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary sculptures in the world, the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, featuring more than 300 masterpieces by Calder, Giacometti, Matisse, Picasso, Rodin, and more. The longtime dream of the late Raymond and Patsy Nasher, the museum was designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker.
Hailed by the "USA Today" as one of the great sculpture gardens where art enhances nature, the roofless museum seamlessly integrates the indoor galleries with the outdoor spaces creating a museum experience unlike any other in the world. On view in the light-filled galleries and amid the landscaped grounds are rotating works from the Collection, as well as blockbuster exhibitions and one-of-a-kind installations by the most celebrated artists of our times. In addition to the indoor and outdoor gallery spaces, the Center contains an auditorium, education and research facilities, a cafe, and a store.
The Nasher brings the best of contemporary culture to Dallas through special programs designed to engage visitors, including artist talks, lecture programs, contemporary music concerts, educational classes and exclusive member events.
The Nasher Sculpture Center is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm and until 11 pm for special events, and from 10 am to 5 pm on the first Saturday of each month. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for students, and free for members and children 12 and under, and includes access to special exhibitions. For more information, visit www.NasherSculptureCenter.org.