Bettina Pousttchi

‘Progressions’, Bettina Pousttchi’s survey at Zurich’s Haus Konstruktiv, is a striking illustration of the idea that urban space is not only the physical environment of a city – from pedestrian and surveillance structures to actual buildings – but also a projection, subject to both time-bound ideologies driving urban policy and to city dwellers’ subjective memories. Spread across three floors, the exhibition highlights the fluidity with which Pousttchi moves between industrial-scale readymades, urban architecture and photography.

- Ela Bittencourt

Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland

Yet, while the artist’s methods and materials may vary, seriality and indexical relationship to the real are recurrent motifs.

The show opens with seven of Pousttchi’s large-scale metal sculptures from the series ‘Vertical Highways’ (2023). Made from the metal used in highway crash barriers and powder-coated in yellow, red, black or white, the works reiterate the same essential shape, but have varying curvatures and dents, as if to transmit individual violent instances of real-life car accidents. Further rooms are dedicated to the artist’s more intimate pieces, such as David (2015), John and Marie (both 2018). Moulded from the stainless steel used in tree-protection barriers, these works – along with the wall-based series ‘Directions’ (2023) – playfully reconfigure utilitarian structures. Others riff on postmodernist minimalism. Double