Andrea Büttner mines philosophy and art history in Kunstmuseum Basel show

The Coronary heart of Relations at Kunstmuseum Basel is the German artist Andrea Büttner’s largest solo exhibition thus far, with nearly 90 works from the previous 15 years. In addition to slide projections, a room-filling mural, tables and benches, her Bread Work (2011-16) seem alongside works by Hans Holbein the Youthful and Willem Van Aelst within the Outdated Masters part of the Kunstmuseum.

Rooted in philosophy and artwork historical past, Büttner’s artwork explores themes resembling disgrace—the topic of her doctorate on the Royal Faculty of Artwork in London—labour, poverty and monastic existences, and the ideologies that traditionally underpin crafts and natural gardening. Whereas finest identified for her woodcuts and etchings, she has diversified into a wide range of different media resembling video installations, books, wooden carvings and textiles.

Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2017, Büttner has lived and labored in Berlin since 2016.

The Artwork Newspaper: You’ve got lengthy been within the topic of disgrace. A mural created for the Basel exhibition, Disgrace Punishments, reveals photographs of public shaming from the Center Ages to the present day. What are the connections between disgrace and artwork?

Andrea Büttner: Disgrace punishments are part of Western artwork historical past—the picture of Christ on the cross is a very powerful instance—however they’re additionally on the rise in our fashionable time. Publicity and visibility is a part of the punishment, a part of the ache.

We reside in a tradition the place establishments and artists all search for visibility as if it’s a optimistic factor. However if you happen to take a look at the historical past of disgrace punishments, it’s not a optimistic factor. Disgrace is expounded to the picture, as a result of it’s all about being seen. Disgrace punishments, in a manner, are exhibition methods.

You even have a efficiency work exhibiting on the Kunstmuseum throughout Artwork Basel, known as Piano Destructions (2014/23). Are you able to describe this?

I collected all of the video footage I may discover of piano destructions within the historical past of artwork—Fluxus, for example, but in addition later. This footage is proven and on the similar time a gaggle of 9 feminine pianists play a live performance on 9 grand pianos.

This gesture of destroying a piano was repeated so usually in artwork historical past, largely by male artists. Within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the piano was related to a feminine bourgeois upbringing. The repetition of the destruction of the piano makes this ultimate gesture of destroying bourgeois tradition fairly ridiculous—many times, one other radical male artist destroying one other piano. There’s additionally one other kind of repetition concerned while you learn to play an instrument and it’s so unheroic in comparability.

Through the pandemic, you went to Beelitz close to Berlin, well-known for its asparagus. At the moment, information objects have been elevating the spectre of a scarcity of international pickers and questioning whether or not it was protected for the harvesters to work collectively. What drew you to the asparagus harvest as a topic?

If you happen to consider Manet, asparagus may be very a lot an artwork historic topic that additionally has to do with the historical past of realism. I went to work en plein air. It was attention-grabbing as a result of it’s a bit ridiculous—a middle-aged girl with a sketchbook. I’m not freed from anxieties about my drawing abilities. I believed that if the harvesters came visiting to see how I draw them, I is perhaps ashamed—the drawings are fairly sketchy and fast. Possibly the individuals who harvest may even draw higher, who is aware of? However they should do the labour to fund their households or their lives and I can afford to do that in my work time. So I felt the drawing was very useful as a lens on to the financial state of affairs of me being an artist, and them being migrant seasonal labourers.

It was solely once I was there [that] I realised that once more, I’m exhibiting folks bending. I see their arms, they’ve a hood as a result of they usually put on hooded sweatshirts when it’s chilly. So once more, it’s the form of the particular person begging or of the particular person praying.

You additionally had picket carvings of asparagus sticks made.

I used to be considering the form of asparagus is a bit like a drumstick, and this gave me the concept to get them carved. This work, which is completely different asparaguses from completely different carving faculties, speaks in regards to the fetishisation of craft inside the discipline of artwork. That’s linked to my principal concern in the intervening time, the roots of craft and natural gardening—all these items that appear left wing however can have fairly reactionary roots too.

What are you at the moment engaged on?

I’m making ready an exhibition at K21 [in Dusseldorf] which is within the autumn. I’m additionally enhancing a video that I shot at Liberty division retailer in London in 2017, and I haven’t proven but. I wished to consider William Morris and Arts and Crafts, so I contacted Pauline Paucker, an artist and artwork historian, and we went to Liberty to talk about socialism and good style.

What has been your expertise of Artwork Basel?

I went to Artwork Basel for the primary time proper after going to the opening of the Documenta I took half in, in 2012, and I used to be deeply shocked, it was such a crass distinction for me. I believed these persons are going to Artwork Basel as a result of, to their minds, they will see all of the artwork directly. And to my thoughts, you can see artwork at Documenta, it was such a distinction. I see it with distance now, however I don’t search for artwork there. I’m going to fulfill colleagues and I take pleasure in that a part of it.

• The Coronary heart of Relations, Kunstmuseum Basel, till 1 October