German artist Bettina Pousttchi’s work will be on display from June 9 to Oct. 2 at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., as the second University of Maryland-sponsored installment of its Intersections exhibition series, according to a news release.
This architecturally-focused exhibit, “Double Monuments for Flavin and Tatlin,” will showcase five of Pousttchi’s works that transform rails, street barricades, metal crowd barriers and other materials used in public events to set boundaries and control large groups of people into sculptures that are aluminum-coated and have neon lights inside, said Vesela Sretenovic, Phillips Collection senior curator of modern and contemporary art and series curator.
This exhibit is part of The Phillips Collection’s ongoing Intersections series. The series, which started in 2009, highlights artists and their contemporary art along with The Phillips Collection’s permanent holdings, history and architecture.
The university announced a six-year partnership with The Phillips Collection in October 2015 to allow expansion in a new arts curriculum, more postdoctoral fellowships, a partnership with Phillips’ International Forum Weekend, a co-published biennial book prize for an unpublished manuscript and a new co-sponsored music series, according to a Diamondback article.
“This art is reminiscent of the Russian Constructivist piece by architect Vladimir Tatlin, as well as Dan Flavin, who is an artist from New York who belonged to the Minimalist movement and used neon lights for all his sculptures,” Sretenovic said.
The sculptures range from 5 feet to 12 feet tall and will be paired with works from the permanent collection including Naum Gabo’s Linear Structure in Space No. 1, as well as black and white photos from the 1930s to 1940s by Berenice Abbott, Louis Faurer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mill and Brett Weston, according to the news release.
Sculptures are a great way for students to get inspired and understand the world in different ways, said David Cronrath, this university’s architecture school dean.
“By having University of Maryland’s students have an opportunity to see some of the best sculpture in visual arts, in the world. … They will have a greater understanding of the world around them and they’ll rub up against ideas that are broader than their own, and therefore broader their perspective,” he said.
University spokesman Brian Ullmann agreed that because The Phillips Collection is interested in presenting art that combines disciplines, it can create more of a learning experience for the university’s students, he said.
“The current exhibit that is going to open up this week is a good example of something that is art but draws on architecture,” Ullmann said. “What an opportunity for our architectural students to go there and to see how architecture blends with art.”
This partnership allows both this university and The Phillips Collection to create “meaningful opportunities for education, innovation, research, entertainment, interdisciplinary collaboration, and exploration,” for everyone, Amanda Hunter, The Phillips Collection marketing and communications associate director, wrote in an email.
The Intersections series also allows artists to explore multiple platforms, Hunter added.
It “invites artists of today to explore the intriguing intersections between old and new traditions, modern and contemporary art practices, and museum spaces and artistic interventions,” she wrote.
