FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2016
Media Contacts:
Elizabeth Lubben, 202.387.2151 x235
elubben@phillipscollection.org
Amanda Hunter, 202.387.2151 x243
ahunter@phillipscollection.org
Online Press Room
www.phillipscollection.org/press
THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2016 INTERSECTIONS PROJECT
Bettina Pousttchi’s Double Monuments reimagines architecture as mediums of remembrance.
WASHINGTON—This summer, The Phillips Collection presents the
work of German artist Bettina Pousttchi, which explores the history
and memory of architecture. Double Monuments is part of the
Phillips’s ongoing Intersections series that highlights contemporary
art and artists in conversation with the museum’s permanent
collection, history, and architecture.
Through photography and sculpture, Bettina Pousttchi is interested
in altering architectural buildings and monuments as indicators of
the past and mediums of remembrance. In her series Double
Monuments for Flavin and Tatlin (2010–2016), Pousttchi transforms
the constraining materials of rails, street barricades, and metal
crowd barriers into sculptural forms with spiraling vertical towers
and neon light tubes. These “double monuments” reference the
work of Russian Constructivist sculptor-architect Vladimir Tatlin
from the 1920s and American minimalist artist Dan Flavin from the
1960s.
Bettina Pousttchi, Double Monuments for
Flavin and Tatlin, 2010. Powder-coated crowd
barriers and neon. Courtesy of the artist and
Buchmann Galerie Berlin.
Five Double Monuments, ranging from 5 to 12 feet, will be on view
at the Phillips, dramatically illuminating the space with neon lights. The sculptures will be paired with
works from the permanent collection including Naum Gabo’s Linear Structure in Space No. 1 (1943) and
black and white photographs from the 1930s and 1940s by Bernice Abbott, Louis Faurer, Alfred
Eisenstaedt, and Gjon Mill—images that underline the theme of illuminated space presented in
Pousttchi and Gabo’s works.
Best known for his architectural sculptures that emphasize negative space and translucency and suggest
skyscrapers and industrial settings, Gabo creates work with a strong kinship to Russian constructivism, a
movement which sought to overcome the static and monumental aspects of traditional sculpture and
activate the surrounding space. Just as Gabo used glass, metal, and plastic to create fluid, almost
transparent sculptures that emphasizes space, line, and movement, Pousttchi employs materials such as
neon and powder-coated objects to create installations that address both sculptural form and
architectural setting.
—more—
Page 2—Bettina Pousttchi: Double Monuments
Double Monuments is exhibited concurrently with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s World
Time Clock series, a group of photographs Pousttchi created in 24 time zones around the globe over the
last eight years. Together, these two exhibitions represent Pousttchi’s first museum presentations on
the east coast of the United States.
Born in Mainz, Germany, in 1971, Bettina Pousttchi is a Berlin-based artist working in photography,
video, and sculpture. She studied at the Kunstackademie Dusseldorf and participated in the Independent
Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York from 1999–2000. Pousttchi’s work
has been displayed throughout Europe, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Köln, and London. She held her
first U.S. solo exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, in 2014.
Double Monuments is on view June 9–October 2, 2016.
EXHIBITION-RELATED EVENTS
Thursday, June 9 (6:30 pm) Opening Reception: The Phillips Collection will host a reception with the
artist to mark the opening of Double Monuments.
Friday, June 10 (6:30 pm) Meet the Artist: Bettina Pousttchi will speak about her World Time Clock
series at the Hirshhorn.
INTERSECTIONS AT THE PHILLIPS
Inaugurated in 2009 and led by Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Vesela Sretenović, the
Phillips’s Intersections series has invited more than 21 artists from the US and abroad to engage with
the museum’s collection and architecture. The artists have created diverse projects—both aesthetically
and conceptually—and employed various media, from wall-drawing, rubber-painting, and digital
photography to video projection and yarn installation.
Intersections is presented by
Additional support is provided by Phillips Collectors Forum members.
ABOUT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of Modern art, is one of the world’s most distinguished
collections of Impressionist and Modern American and European art. Stressing the continuity between
art of the past and present, it offers a strikingly original and experimental approach to Modern art by
combining works of different nationalities and periods in displays that change frequently. The setting is
similarly unconventional, featuring small rooms, a domestic scale, and a personal atmosphere. Artists
represented in the collection include Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri
Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Claude Monet, Honoré Daumier,
Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, Jacob Lawrence, and Richard Diebenkorn,
among others. The permanent collection has grown to include more than 1,000 photographs, many by
American photographers Berenice Abbott, Esther Bubley, and Bruce Davidson, and works by
contemporary artists such as Anslem Kiefer, Wolfgang Laib, Whitfield Lovell, and Leo Villareal. The
Phillips Collection regularly organizes acclaimed special exhibitions, many of which travel internationally.
The Phillips also produces award-winning education programs for K–12 teachers and students, as well as
for adults. The University of Maryland Center for Art and Knowledge at The Phillips Collection is the
museum’s nexus for academic work, scholarly exchange, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Since
1941, the museum has hosted Sunday Concerts in its wood-paneled Music Room. The Phillips Collection
is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by donations.
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