Bechtold’s Work
Matias Bechtold works with corrugated cardboard, a mundane material primarily used for packaging and paid little attention because, after use, all one can do with it is recycle it. Beyond that, corrugated cardboard seems as unsuitable for artistic work as can be imagined because it is soft and fragile, on the one hand, and heavily textured, on the other.



Bechtold’s dealings with corrugated cardboard are ingenious and extremely inventive. He works with every characteristic of this material and knows how to make use particularly of its multi–layered, wavy structure. By cutting it in extremely various ways and deforming and gluing it, he can realize both very small and very large structures with corrugated cardboard or dissolve macro–structures into the smallest details without endangering the object’s stability. Corrugated cardboard is thus the ideal material for the utopian–dystopian urban visions of the trained model-builder and artist.



A fascinating aspect of Bechtold’s works is that—whether as mega-structures, as models of entire cityscapes, or as huge constructions—they give wings to imagination at the same time as they are so rich in detail that the viewer can lose himself in them and forget that they are models. But it is not only the uniformity of the material from which they are made that plays a great role in this particular experience between vision, illusion, and realism; also essential is the consistent make of his processing, in which the material is made to almost disappear. In their conceptual and artistic self–containment, Bechtold’s models indeed bring an entire world into view, a world that critically–ironically comments upon or intentionally exaggerates the world we live in. This is expressed as aptly in the cityscape illuminated by a computer–monitor sky as in Bechtold’s utopian architectures, which create their own standards.



Bechtold’s works are a prime example of how intelligent reflection and great craftsmanship can bring forth from our daily reality another world that takes the everyday world into the completely unexpected. Quite apart from Bechtold’s theme—utopias—in his oeuvre we have works before our eyes whose making, itself, concretizes a utopian aspect. That the artist plans to make more utopias visible in his medium is thus only consistent.
—By Michael Fehr   /Translated by Mitch Cohen



_______________________
Prof. Dr. Michael Fehr is director
of the Institute for Art in Context at the University of the Arts Berlin

Publication
»Beyond Architecture—Imaginative Buildings an Fictional Cities«â€¨
»Beyond Architecture«â€¨ is the first publication of its kind to document the creative exploration of architecture and urban propositions in the contemporary arts. The projects collected in this book demonstrate how not only architects and designers, but also artists are taking architecture as a starting point for experimentation. They range from performance, installation art and crafted sculptures to architectural models, alternative ideas for living spaces and furniture, as well as illustration, painting, collage and photography. Through stunning photography, visuals and complementary texts, these visionary concepts reveal the hidden creative potential for architecture and urban environments in inventive ways.


//Die Gestalten Verlag, Berlin, 2009 | published by Robert Klanten and Lukas Feireiss | 208 pages, full colour, hardcover | Features work by: Tom Sachs, Pipilotti Rist, Erwin Wurm, Matias Bechtold, Rachel Whiteread, Mike Kelley, Do Ho Suh, The Chapman Brothers, Eamon O’Kane, Thomas Demand, Kobas Laksa, Arne Quinze, Wang Qingsong, Filip Dujardin, Studio Job, Droog Design, Atelier van Lieshout, Nathan Coley, Olafur Eliasson, eBoy and more.
ISBN: 978-3-89955-235-5