Michael Beutler

Michael Beutler was born in Oldenburg, Germany, in 1976 and lives and works in Berlin. 

Michael Beutler’s works fully inhabit the space in which they are presented. His installations, characterized by open forms and deliberately imprecise contours, expand into the surrounding environment and, through their scale, engage in a dialogue with the site that receives them. The simplicity of the materials used—including cardboard, paper, fabric, adhesive, and wood—contrasts with the complexity of the fabrication processes devised by the artist. The presence of machinery and tools alongside his installations emphasizes the importance of the creative process. Beutler’s sculptures become autonomous architectures within larger architectural contexts, offering new ways of perceiving their surroundings. Through their extraordinary scale, they transform and disrupt our experience of space. 

Developed at Atelier Calder, Maison Saucisson (2013) was conceived as a complete architectural program, encompassing everything from the fabrication of its elements to the construction of the dwellings themselves. The artist envisioned a series of structures composed of circular straw-and-earth components stacked upon one another, existing at the crossroads of architecture and sculpture. For each stage of production, he developed an experimental method inspired by both existing machines and traditional tools. Beutler realized the project as a workshop involving several groups of students from the art schools of Bordeaux and Tours. His practice challenges the standardization of construction methods by creating his own architectural processes, inviting reflection on the ways we inhabit and engage with public and private spaces.