With this piece, Beutler continues his acclaimed work in which he assembles mundane materials in individual processes to create spatial installations relating directly to each particular site.
The cross-genre works are intended to be understood as reactions to architectural and social structures, as well as to specific situations at respective sites within the exhibition. Central elements in Michael Beutler's works are also underscored by his analysis of industrial production processes and the economies associated with them, as well as the thematic development of a conscious and autonomous attitude to the materials and methods he uses. The artist incorporates industrially manufactured or processed materials, such as paper, metal, wood or plastic, shaping them into large-scale building elements with specially developed tools and apparatuses, as well as through the involvement of third parties. Resembling an experimental setup, a condition of provisional uncertainty is created in the process-like development of his installations, which Beutler seizes as a necessary, productive component of his work.
In this exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, Beutler goes beyond simply elevating the historical hall into the show's protagonist; instead he transforms it into a place of continuous production, into a 'museum workshop'.

Support for this exhibition project is part of a multiyear partnership between Volkswagen and the Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Michael Beutler -
Curator Melanie Roumiguière - Greta Hoheisel -

What material does an artist select, and for what reasons? The international group exhibition Living in the Material World examines the role of materials in contemporary art. It brings together important positions in contemporary art including - in Theaster Gates - a participant at dOCUMENTA (13) 2012 in Kassel, and contributors to the two most recent Venice Biennales in Lara Almarcegui, Karla Black, Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Oscar Tuazon.
The twelve artists invited to participate here focus on the characteristics and narrative potential of such diverse materials as fabric, concrete, wood, ceramics, glass, plastic or paper. While it was still important during the 1960s to assimilate random materials once considered alien to art into fine art at all, and so to oppose traditional material hierarchies and art-historical conventions, today the use of such an artistic repertoire is no longer a trigger of outrage. The materials being used here are familiar – in the exhibition space as well. The artistic focus is less on the discovery of new materials and more on a re-dedication of the familiar, giving it a novel function.

Lara Almárcegui - Michael Beutler - Karla Black - Berta Fischer - Theaster Gates - Ane Mette Hol - Jessica Jackson Hutchins - David Jablonowski - Markus Karstieß - Alicja Kwade - Marie Lund - Oscar Tuazon -
Curator Beate Ermacora -