Bettina Pousttchi: MoCA Shanghai

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Shanghai presents the exhibition Constellations by Bettina Pousttchi, the artist’s first exhibition in China.

Bettina Pousttchi’s Constellations consists of two parts: the two sculptures from the series Vertical Highways and the Shanghai Window, which serves as the actual window. Together, they represent a structural aspect of the word “constellation,” signifying a transcendental connection that goes beyond time and space.

The Shanghai Window refers to Shanghai’s unique architectural history influenced by the Art Deco movement. Its content and form are inspired by the current environment embodying both collective memory and the preservation of the past in the present, highlighting their dialectical relationship. The two sculptures from the Vertical Highways series are built from highway barriers reminiscent of skyscrapers. The barriers have a horizontal tendency but are distorted vertically towards the sky, suggesting endless growth fuelled by modern capitalist production.

Constellation can be seen as an attempt to explore the interaction between time and space, past and present. The exhibition can also be viewed from the outside as a work of art itself—directly integrated into the hustle and bustle and passing traffic—thus revealing its inherent paradox as part of the world panorama.

Bettina Pousttchi is one of Germany’s most prominent contemporary artists. She is known for works that connect sculpture, photography and architecture. The artist has received significant recognition internationally, with solo exhibitions of her work in institutions such as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the Kunsthalle Basel, the Arts Club of Chicago, the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, the Nasher Sculpture Center Dallas and the Berlinische Galerie, Museum of Modern Art, Berlin. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections worldwide.

Parallel to her exhibition at MoCa Shanghai, the Aurora Museum in Shanghai will be showing the exhibition Bettina Pousttchi: World Time Clock from November 18.