Andrea Pichl – Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany

For the exhibition, Andrea Pichl designed an architectural installation that deals with the economic transfer between West and East Germany and the transformation after 1989. The audience becomes part of the staging, which includes everyday, mostly standardized and mass-produced building forms and objects.

Removed from their original context, Pichl subjects objects and spaces to critical reflection and questions which image of man and which ideas of social coexistence are inscribed in them: How do invisible structures such as state power, capital flows and historical upheavals manifest themselves, where does public life end and privacy begin, when does a utopian vision turn into a dystopian reality?

Following Naama Tsabar’s solo exhibition , Pichl’s spatial installation is the second contemporary position to be shown parallel to Joseph Beuys’ permanent exhibition in the Kleihueshalle in the Hamburger Bahnhof and to refer to his work.

The artist Andrea Pichl

Andrea Pichl (born 1964, lives and works in Berlin) deals with the architecture and design of post-modernism. This applies to social housing complexes as well as grilles, fences and decorative elements from the outside as well as doors, textiles and carpets from the inside. These anonymously designed forms define, shape or delimit space, but are hardly noticeable due to their inconspicuousness. On the basis of research, Pichl develops installations, sculptures, drawings and photographs. Using strategies of appropriation and transfer, the artist directs the viewer’s gaze to individual parts, fragments or sections.

Publication for the exhibition

Accompanying the exhibition is the ninth edition of the Hamburger Bahnhof catalogue series , edited by Silvana Editoriale with 112  pages, available in the Walther König bookstore for 12  euros. ISBN: 9788836656561

Curator

The exhibition is curated by Sven Beckstette, research associate, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.