Bettina Pousttchi
Since the late 2000s, German-Iranian artist Bettina Pousttchi has been creating works at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, and photography. Her large-scale installations investigate the history and memory of places, exploring the connections between time and space from a transnational perspective, and have gained her international recognition and praise. This book features Pousttchi's new photographic installation at Nivola Museum in Orani on the Italian island of Sardinia. She chose the Metropolitan Life Building on 1 Madison Avenue in Manhattan as her subject for this piece. Criticized for its blatant Italian references at the time of its completion in 1909 - and the world's tallest structure until 1913 - the building displays a hybrid identity, recalling cultural and temporal-spatial dislocations between the Old and the New World, Renaissance and Modernism. Exhibition: Museo Nivola, Orani, Sardinia, Italy (29.09.2017 - 14.01.2018).