For her exhibition at the Nasher, Pousttchi expands on the relationship between photography, sculpture, and architecture to create a unique environment that draws on the history of the Nasher Sculpture Center site. The artist will transform one of the upstairs galleries into a closed urban streetscape recalling the gasoline service stations and parking lots that formerly occupied the Nasher location dating back to when Ross Avenue was known as "Automobile Row" in the middle of the 20th century. The floor of the gallery will be "blacktopped" and painted to resemble a street, creating a "drive thru" art gallery for selected works from the Nasher Collection. A photographic pattern reminiscent of expanding scissor gates often used to protect storefronts and automobile repair shops will be applied to the glass facades of the gallery, obscuring views into and out of the space. In addition, several of Pousttchi’s sculptures made from police barricades and street bollards will occupy the spaces surrounding the gallery.

Born in Mainz, Germany in 1971, Pousttchi studied with artists Rosemarie Trockel and Gerhard Merz at the esteemed Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum in New York in the 1990s. Since 1997, she has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2009, the Kunsthalle Basel in 2011, and the major projects mentioned above.

Bettina Pousttchi -