|
Since the early 2000s, German artist Andrea Büttner has created images on such complex subjects as employment, poverty, shame, forms of coexistence, and belief systems that have had a far-reaching impact on society, both religious and secular. To “image” these subjects, the artist draws on a broad spectrum of artistic forms, from the large-scale wood engravings for which she is well known to books, glass objects, video installations, and textiles.
Curated by Maja Wismer, Büttner’s major solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel brings together different narrative threads, including the benevolence of monastic communal life and coercive labour in biodynamic agriculture under National Socialism. In the same vein, Büttner links the representational traditions of public shaming to traces of the daily use of smartphones, such as the fingerprints left on devices. Büttner’s spatial narratives make tangible the ambivalences embedded in established half-truths.
Kunstmuseum Basel conceived The Heart of Relations in cooperation with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen; a publication is forthcoming. Büttner’s work has been widely exhibited, recently as solo exhibitions by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Tate Britain, London; and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt.
|