This year The Armory Show introduced a new section to the fair, Armory Focus. Each year it will feature an art community, starting this time around with Berlin. Present are 22 emerging and established galleries including Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Buchmann Galerie, Johnen Gallery, Tanya Leighton Gallery, ph-projects, and Galerie Barbara Weiss. Whitewall stopped by Buchmann Galerie’s booth to speak with Director André Buchmann about participating in the inaugural Focus section and his choice to present a solo booth with artist Bettina Pousttchi.
Bettina Pousttchi at Galerie Buchmann in Armory Focus: Berlin.
WHITEWALL: Why did you choose the Bettina Pousttchi? Was your choice based on the fact that she would be presented within Armory Focus: Berlin?
ANDREE BUCHMANN: This is an artist based in Berlin. She is currently doing a major project in Berlin which is a photo installation consisting of 1000 poster papers that she has mounted on the façade of the Temporare Kunsthalle in Berlin. [Then} she photographs herself this photo installation. She’s kind of encountering her photographic work installed on the building in the heart of Berlin. To me it was very obvious that we would bring her.
WW: Can you tell me a bit more about the three photographs?
AB: What you see is this building that is built like a shoebox. It was the concept of the architect, Adolf Krischanitz, that the façade can be used by an artist to create work. So Pousttchi was commissioned to do this piece by the Kunsthalle – an art installation in Berlin that is on this site for two years only. So everything is very temporary: the institution is temporary for now, the building is temporary, and the artwork is temporary. It’s very typical for Berlin where things are at this moment changing a lot. You can see in the photographs of Bettina Pousttchi that the city is a big construction site. There is an archaeological site in the foreground, buildings in the back under construction, you see different styles of architectural periods.
WW: You also have sculpture work in the booth – is this by Pousttchi as well?
AB: This is also by her. In general, her work is a lot about issues of public and private space. And she has worked with these barriers that you can find in the street and they are bent and twisted and chrome plated. It’s between a sculpture that looks soft and fluid and also very solid because it’s steel. So there’s an ambivalence between the form and the medium.
WW: Was it required of you to present just one artist?
AB: No I decided to. I thought it was a clear statement. It’s not a very big booth so I didn’t want to mix it up with too many things. I thought one artist was a clear statement.
WW: How do you feel about The Armory Show focusing on Berlin this year?
AB: I think it’s great. I think it’s a wonderful idea to have a focus on a city such as Berlin that is so vibrant and where so many artists and galleries are.
WW: Would you say that the galleries present are an objective cross-section of the gallery scene in Berlin?
AB: Definitely.
Bettina Pousttchi at Galerie Buchmann in Armory Focus: Berlin.
