A floating tower (app. 700 cm high) in the water along the Gulden Kruispad, made of wood, aluminum and plastic. Along the canal bank a little sand beach covered with small, handmade clay figurines. The “pebbles” were made during several workshops with pupils of the adjacent high school. Together the different elements form a work with two sculptural theme’s: volume and mass.
Perhaps Michael Beutler’s true art is actually the collaborative creation of an artwork. His objects have the specific qualities and form they do because each one is the product of a close-knit cooperative effort. But without Beutler’s inspiring drawings and explanations, without his ideas, they would never have materialised. Some of Beutler’s instructions are very precise and clear, while others are intentionally left vague. Beutler allows for many different factors when projecting a work: from the properties of the material and the new insights generated by the creative process to the influence of his fellow makers and the planned location. In Beutler’s view, reality is impossible to plan; it comes to life as the activity progresses. And that activity is a communal effort. Beutler produced Big Satellite and Small Milky Way with the enthusiastic pupils of a comprehensive school, Open Schoolgemeenschap Bijlmer (OSB). The work consists of two separate sections, but these sections clearly relate both to each other and to their surroundings. Standing in the middle of the canal is a tower, several metres high, made of modelled and entwined pieces of synthetic material. At the water’s edge, a temporary little beach has been created from an enormous quantity of handmade pebbles. Amid the Bijlmer’s green landscape, they interact with wind, water and time.
Michael Beutler
1976, Oldenburg, DE. Lives and works in Berlin, DE
Michael Beutler makes temporary structures out of what appear at first sight to be found materials. In fact he chooses his materials with great deliberation – whether fabrics or plastic, iron, fencing materials or paper – in response to the place and context of the project at hand. Beutler ‘occupies’ locations, changing the nature of a site or creating completely new spaces. He has a very people-oriented working method; besides specialist professionals he also works with amateurs, giving them precise instructions but also challenging them to devise their own solutions as part of the construction process he sets in motion.
