Highlight #32: Art meets summer

Meet art works in U.K., Finland and Austria

U.K., Bristol <PUMP HOUSE>

16 April ~ 19 June 2016_Spike Island

German artist Michael Beutler presents an ambitious large-scale, site-specific commission at Spike Island. This two-chapter exhibition responds to Spike Island's current use as a gallery and to its use as a tea- packing factory in the past.
An artist whose works are usually grounded in the geographical context of the exhibition, Beutler worked with a great number of collaborators for Pump House, and the team they formed acted as a catalyst for the development of the exhibition as a whole.

Beutler’s works concern the process of production and a subversion of industrial and serial manufacturing processes. His works always involves industrial materials, which he repurposes and reinterprets in modular makeshift constructions with the help of hand-built tools. This demonstrates Beutler’s inclination to respond to existing social or architectural structures, and his interest in recycling, DIY and prototyping. The title Pump House is a nod to the British industrial landscape in which disused pump houses are a regular fixture.

<Waffelwall> 2012

Installation view, Michael Beutler studio, Berlin
<Haus Beutler> 2014

Installation view, La Loge, Brussels Courtesy La Loge
<Pilf(fuma na banja)> 2005

Installation view, Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin Courtesy Franco Soffiantino Contemporary Art Productions

Finland, Helsinki <BOA>

4 March ~ 4 September 2016_Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma

Ernesto Neto, an artist currently to watch in the international contemporary art world, focuses on the tradition of Brazilian modernism. Recently, the Brazil-born artist has worked closely with an indigenous people of the Amazon who are called “Huni Kuin.” Neto was hugely fascinated by Huni Kuin's tradition and ritual; especially their pursuit of happiness, harmony in life, and their passion for tolerating the wisdom of nature. The artist's works reflect his perspective on respecting the rights and traditions of native peoples he worked with, and he also tries to recognize the cultural differences through his works. His pieces can be defined by the audiences' presence and participation through the interactions with them.

The exhibition offers an opportunity to meet Neto's new installation that was inspired by the shape of the head of a boa constrictor. The new piece contains strong symbolic and touchable references to the culture of the Huni Kuin. The audience can also see the aspects that the artist has been working with for more than twenty years, such as the harmony of human and nature, sensuality, experientialism and the producing of positive energy.

<Yubẽ bushka> 2016

Yksityiskohta(Detail) KUVA Photo: Petri Virtanen, Kansallisgalleria Finnish National Gallery
<Apenas sentado no caminho da jiboia> 2016

KUVA Photo: Petri Virtanen, Kansallisgalleria Finnish National Gallery
<Variation on Color Seed Space Time Love> 2009

KUVA Photo: Petri Virtanen, Kansallisgalleria Finnish National Gallery

Austria, Vienna <BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE>

8 April ~ 5 September 2016_Leopold Museum

Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere presents her major works and series from the past two decades at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Her sculptures of various media including wax, wood, fiber, and animal hair shows the raw beauty and vulnerability of the human body. Her works are very lifelike and yet leave a surreal impression on the audience. Most of her sculptures on living things do not have a face or a head. They are also imperfect and sexless. The audience can barely tell by looking at the flesh if the subject is or was alive. Instead of depicting the entire fixed body, De Bruyckere exposes the audience to fragmented bodies that reveal the process of transformation.

These figures focus on the existential questions of pain, suffering, and death. Through her interpretation of the general human experience, the artist tells us life is linked to death. Formation and deformation of form emphasizes how human existence is temporarily anchored to their bodies. That is the point where materiality and corporality transform to abstraction in her works. ■ with ARTINPOST