Framework © Bettina Pousttchi
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt Römerberg 60311 Frankfurt France
The Schirn Kunsthalle is showcasing a new work by German-Iranian artist Bettina Pousttchi specifically designed for the exterior of the Schirn. Similar to her well-received installation “Echo” (2009/10) in Berlin – where she resurrected the just demolished Palast der Republik (the former East German parliament building) in the form of a monumental photo installation applied to the façade of the Temporäre Kunsthalle (Temporary Art Hall) – her Frankfurt piece will likewise cover a large portion of the building façade. In “Framework” Pousttchi has taken timber framework elements from two buildings on Frankfurt’s Römer square out of the context of their original façades and combines them into an ornament composed of modules, each measuring one by one meter, infinitely repeated, lending a harmonious rhythm to the overall look of the Schirn. In their interlinking of architecture, sculpture, and photography Pousttchi’s monumental photo installations broaden the traditional understanding of photography. They examine the question of how to approach urban space and memory while at the same time exploring the temporal dimension of architecture.
The exhibition has been made possible by Schirn Zeitgenossen.
In her works Bettina Pousttchi reflects on the urban and social changes that mark our times. Her photographs, films, sculptures and installations enable us to experience these fundamental changes to the urban fabric. With “Echo” (2009/10) she resurrected the former Palast der Republik for a period of six months in the form of a photo installation consisting of 970 individual posters applied to the façade of the Temporäre Kunsthalle in Berlin. The former East German parliament building had recently been demolished a mere 30 years after its completion in order to create space for the reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss, which in turn had been torn down in 1950. As such, by means of architecture, in a period of less than 70 years three distinct political systems had erected prestigious structures on Berlin’s Schlossplatz as symbols of the respective era. The artist demonstrated how quickly architecture can lose its ascribed meaning and questioned how a location anchored in the collective memory is perceived, and the role documentary photography plays between personal memory and official written history.
Framework © Bettina Pousttchi
With her monumental photo installation “Framework” Bettina Pousttchi addresses questions such as these, while also offering a commentary on the building itself, whose façade she is using. The Schirn is a postmodern building, which opened in 1986 and forms the termination of the area around the cathedral and Römer on the side facing the Main River. For “Framework” Pousttchi studied picture archives and spent over a year photographing the Schirn and the surroundings. The artist took existing framework elements from two half-timbered buildings on the Römer square nearby – the “Schwarzer Stern” (Black star) and “Wertheym” – out of their original context and recombined them in a repetitive structure with a Middle Eastern feel to it. The resulting black-and-white frieze will be applied directly to the sixty-four windows of the rotunda in the Schirn’s entrance and the sixty-seven windows of the entire eastern façade using photo prints.
Bettina Pousttchi will create a perplexing situation with “Framework”. On the Schirn’s façade photographic elements of timber frameworks, originally a purely constructional element, are transformed into pure decor; seeing this applied to a post-Modernist building is for some rather absurd, while others find it a convincing statement. Yet the production process is not so far removed from the way historical buildings are reconstructed; essentially, a historical-looking façade is put on a carcass constructed using cutting-edge methods and using modern materials. This way Pousttchi also highlights the modern-day longing for tradition and historical construction forms that give us new versions of old city palaces and new old towns that may take on a historical appearance, but are of course by no means intended to assume their original function.
Image : © Bettina Pousttchi