The 31-year-old Berlin artist has transformed the gallery’s main space into his studio, creating unique objects existing in the frontier between do-it-yourself puzzles and enormous utopian constructions. The Konsthall has thereby been filled with playful, anarchistic sculptures.
Michael Buetler has created new works specifically for Bonniers Konsthall which take the architecture of the building as their starting point. Using improvisation and detailed planning in equal measures he has, in collaboration with students of The Royal University College of Fine Arts, created a forest of pillars, made out of cardboard and wire, covered in different shades of wrapping paper.
In conjunction with the new works, Bonniers Konsthall presents a selection of Beutler’s earlier pieces; hand-built machines that are both art makers and artworks in themselves. They are ingenious machines, handmade implements with very specific purposes: one corrugates paper; another stretches plastic into large volumes; a third uses glue and cardboard to form large rings that are then stacked on top of one another. In the Konsthall’s entrance hall, a machine puts household aluminium through a mangle to produce long, winding pathways that cover the floor. For each machine the artist has made a set of operating manuals that can be seen on the walls of the space. Here we find humorous, almost affectionate, instructions on how the artwork is to be used.
Works in the exhibition
Pump up the volume – Herrmann
14–24 February
Rustika/kommt die 0 zur 8
27 February – 16 March
Strandsegler ‘Lolita’
19–30 March
Potpourri
2–6 April
Alumangel and the new piece Kottgubbar and the Memphis Pipeline will be exhibited throughout the exhibition period.
Wednesdays Evenings
Over three Wednesday evenings, you can learn about Michael Beutler’s art through another person’s perspective.
27 February: Jens Östberg, choreographer, scriptwriter and director
19 March: Ulrika Karlsson, architect and one of the founding members of Servo international architecture and design collaborative
2 April: Michael Beutler, artist, and Sara Arrhenius, Director of Bonniers Konsthall
Top image: Michael Beutler, Rustika/kommt die 0 zur 8, 2008. Photo: Bonniers Konsthall
