In 2012 Bettina Pousttchi applied her photographic installation Framework to the façade of the SCHIRN; in addition, eight motifs from her long-term project World Time Clock were on display in the Rotunda. We met the artist in Berlin for an interview.
Schirn Magazin: Ms. Pousttchi, you were just under way for your project World Time Clock, for which you took photographs of clocks in all the world's twenty-four time zones. Where were you?
Bettina Pousttchi: I've just come back from Rio de Janeiro and Santiago de Chile. In recent years, the project has taken me all the way to Anchorage, Honolulu, and Vladivostok. What developed is a kind of world time clock. I took pictures of prominent clocks in public space, always at the same time--five minutes to two. I got the idea for the project in 2008 when I was living in London, and so I started with Big Ben.
SM: Photography is supposed to depict reality; you draw attention to how photography constructs reality. Your World Time Clock suggests an element of simultaneity that's otherwise not possible.
BP: World Time Clock examines very fundamental questions concerning photography. You've addressed two of them. There's the reality aspect, the suggestion of an event that is supposed to have taken place. And there is this supposed moment frozen in time. Both of these come together in the world time clock. It is the presentation of the same moment in the whole world, which is impossible; I took photographs of all of these moments over a period of six years. I find this impression of simultaneity fascinating.
SM: You literally conduct artistic research in that you examine the aspects of the medium of photography. The snapshot in time that you represent with your clock is an example for this.
BP: I like to experiment with the conceptual and formal possibilities of photography. The transition from analog to digital has not affected any other medium as much as it has photography. Some theorists have predicted the end of photography. What I'm more interested in is the new leaf digital photography is going to turn over. What's exciting, for example, is the materialization of the image, the translation of data into different image carriers that can be experienced physically. For my installations I have pictures printed on a wide variety of materials. For Echo, for instance, the photo installation on the façade of the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, which examined the Palace of the Republic, which has been torn down in the meantime, 970 different paper posters were produced and put up next to each other. For Framework, the work I produced for the SCHIRN in 2012, the photos were printed on self-adhesive vinyl foil.
SM: Besides photography, you also work with videos; and you create sculptures, for example out of crowd control barriers. Do these deal with power structures?
BP: I'm primarily interested in the physical experience of objects in space. Crowd control barriers are objects that influence how people move in public space. The question of how art is actually exhibited also plays a role. I'm interested in what happens when art leaves the exhibition space, which is the case for works such as Echo or Framework; but I also stage the reverse case: in my works with crowd control barriers and street bollards objects are transferred from public space to the museum.
SM: You studied with Rosemarie Trockel. What did you take with you?
BP: I started working with videos during this period. In addition, she encouraged me to work independently with various media. The fact that I'm doing this today ultimately enables me to deal with photography in an innovative way. By the way, I always work in two media simultaneously, and I apply my experience with the one to the other.
SM: Your World Time Clock is finished. What's coming next?
BP: Within the scope of the awarding of the art prize of the City of Wolfsburg, in May I'm going to realize a 2,150-square-meter photographic work on the façade of the castle there. At the same time, there will also be an exhibition of other works of mine in the castle. In addition, I'm preparing a museum exhibition in the United States. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas invited me to present my sculptures and to develop a site-specific work for the architecture of the building designed by Renzo Piano. The installation will incorporate the glazed façade facing Flora Street and the Sculpture Garden as well as the interior exhibition space. A part of the collection will be re-presented within this spatial installation.