Walker Art Center to Present First U.S. Solo Exhibition of Andrea Büttner

MINNEAPOLIS, September 14 2015—The Walker Art Center will present the first solo exhibition in the United States of German artist Andrea Büttner (b. 1972), including a newly-commissioned installation. Andrea Büttner will be on view from November 21, 2015 through April 10, 2016 in the Burnet Gallery.

Andrea Büttner’s work often creates connections between art history and social or ethical issues, with a particular interest in notions of poverty, shame, value, and vulnerability, and both exploring and challenging the belief systems that underpin them. Working within a range of premodernist media that includes woodcuts, reverse glass painting, weaving, sculpture, and moss cultivation, Büttner emphasizes such methods in dialogue and counterpoint with video, performance, and installation. By restoring outmoded methods of our time, Büttner challenges conventions of high and low, constructing a profound space between ornate and humble, cool remove and humility, and the urge to judge or remain partially withheld. She often infuses her work with her own primary research on artists who engaged in socially responsive projects, including German printmaker and activist HAP Grieshaber and the Welsh painter Gwen John. In other projects, Büttner has positioned the relatively anonymous alongside a questioning of monumental or iconic figures, a contrast evident in the artist’s recent illustration of German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790).

Throughout her installations and exhibitions, Büttner consistently embraces a range of printmaking and print techniques, from woodcut and screenprints to offset printing and a recent foray into etching, including a new series made expressly for the exhibition. Brought into contact with reverse glass painting, sculpture, collage, the moving image, photography, instruction-based works, textile, and the frequent inclusion of other artist’s work in her exhibitions, Büttner traverses mediums, materials, and subjects enabled by her engagement with the printed image.

“Andrea Büttner’s practice intertwines art historical concepts with social and political issues, often exploring such unfashionable connections as the relationship between art and religion, deviance and ethics, or shame and visual expression,” said Fionn Meade, the Walker’s Artistic Director and exhibition curator. “The Walker Art Center is thrilled to present the first solo exhibition of Büttner’s work in the U.S. as it presents a selection of ongoing research and recent work in dialog with a newly commissioned installation.”

Andrea Büttner presents existing work by the artist, including a series of eleven large off-set prints culled from her book-length visual exploration of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (published by Felix Meiner Verlag and Museum Ludwig, Cologne). This presentation of “Kant’s pictures” features composite digital illustrations, mixing historical images the philosopher may have had in mind while writing his treatise with contemporary image constellations configured by the artist as reader, interpreter, and questioner. The installation will also include a living moss bed, alongside a range of new works, including handcrafted piano benches, large-scale woodcuts, and a new series of etchings that captures and transposes the smear and blur of fingerprints left on cell phone screens.

Exhibition curator: Fionn Meade

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Stuttgart in 1972, Andrea Büttner received her M.F.A. from the University of the Arts, Berlin, her M.A. in art history and philosophy at Humboldt University, Berlin, and her Ph.D. from the Royal Academy College of Art, London, with a thesis on the relationship between art and shame. Büttner has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, Hollybush Gardens, and Institute of Contemporary Art, London, as well as the Banff Centre in Canada, National Museum Cardiff in Wales, and Museum Ludwig in Cologne, among others. In 2009, Büttner was recipient of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women and her work was featured in Documenta 13. Büttner currently lives and works in London and Frankfurt.

RELATED EVENTS

Saturday, November 21

Salon talk: Andrea Büttner, Lars Bang Larsen and Fionn Meade

Art historian, curator, and writer Lars Bang Larsen will join Andrea Büttner and Fionn Meade for an opening day in-gallery conversation.

Sunday, November 22

Dinner with Andrea Büttner and friends

Join us for dinner with Andrea Büttner and friends: Lars Bang Larsen; Dr. Keren Gorodeisky, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University; and others to be announced. The dinner proceeds from a foraging walk conducted by the participants. Tickets on sale as of November 1, check website for more details.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Andrea Büttner is organized by the Walker Art Center. The exhibition is made possible by generous support from RBC Wealth Management.