Artist Feature

Michael Beutler

Michael Beutler’s work comes out of nothingness, a void. There are no preliminary steps. Materials, production, mechanics and method all come together in an exercise which transforms the magical into routine through the construction of all the elements necessary to manufacture and assemble his pieces.

All images Courtesy by the artist and Galeria Ehrhardt Florez

The starting point of the process, the manufacturing of the very machines used to make the pieces constitutes an essential and permanent part of the exhibition. And, meanwhile, the material produced in situ out of the functioning of those rudimentary artefacts, practically invented and improvised by the artist on the spot, constitutes the ephemeral part.

Beutler’s installations occupy and transform spaces through sculptural interventions that open viewers to alternative perceptions, new artistic methods and strategies. The cross-genre works are intended to be understood as reactions to architectural and social structures, as well as to specific situations at respective sites within the exhibition. Central elements in Michael Beutler’s works are also underscored by his analysis of industrial production processes and the economies associated with them, as well as the thematic development of a conscious and autonomous attitude to the materials and methods he uses. The artist incorporates industrially manufactured or processed materials, such as paper, metal, wood or plastic, shaping them into large-scale building elements with specially developed tools and apparatuses, as well as through the involvement of third parties. Resembling an experimental setup, a condition of provisional uncertainty is created in the process-like development of his installations, which Beutler seizes as a necessary, productive component of his work.

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