Drive-thru Museums: Artist Bettina Pousttchi in conversation with Curator Jed Morse

Presented April 12, 2014 at the Nasher Sculpture Center.

In conjunction with her exhibition, ‘Sightings: Bettina Pousttchi’ in the Nasher Sculpture Center, artist Bettina Pousttchi discusses with Nasher Sculpture Center Curator, Jed Morse, her wider creative practice. Through the combination of photography, sculpture and architecture, Pousttchi transformed the Nasher galleries into closed urban streetscapes recalling the gasoline service stations and parking lots that formerly occupied the Nasher location, dating to when Dallas’s Ross Avenue was named ‘Automobile Row’. The ‘blacktopped’ floor, painted to resemble a street creates a ‘drive thru’ art gallery for selected works from the Nasher Collection; while a photographic pattern reminiscent of the expanding scissor gates was applied to the glass facades of the museum obscuring the view into and out of the gallery space.

For the past 15 years, Bettina Pousttchi has created artworks in a variety of media including photography, video, and sculpture. These works often examine the constructed nature and tenuousness of memory. In recent projects, including ‘Echo’ (2009-10) at the Temporare Kunsthalle in Berlin and ‘Framework’ (2011) at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Pousttchi has presented photography at the scale of architecture, lending it a sense of monumentality and presence normally associated with large-scale sculpture. A German-Iranian artist, in the 1990s Pousttchi studied fine arts and film theory at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf and at the Whitney Museum in New York. Over the past ten years, she has worked with a wide variety of media: sculpture, photography, and video, always dealing with social and political issues. Since 1997, she has participated in group and solo exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 2003, at the Museum Domus Artium of Salamanca in 2007, and at the TENT Center of Visual Arts in Rotterdam in 2009.

Born in Mainz, Germany in 1971, Pousttchi studies with artists Rosmarie Trockel and Gerhard Merz at the esteemed Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in the 1990’s. Since 1997, she has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2009, the Kunsthalle Basel in 2011.

The Nasher Sculpture Center’s ongoing 360 Speaker Series features conversations and lectures on the ever-expanding definition of sculpture. Guests are invited to witness first-hand accounts of the inspiration behind some of the world’s most innovative artwork, architecture and design.

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The 360 videography project is supported by Suzanne and Ansel Aberly. This support enables digital recording of all 360 Speaker Series programs and the creation of an online archive for learners of all ages.
Additional support for the 360 Speaker Series provided by Sylvia Hougland and the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.