City Life

ABOVE: BETTINA POUSTTCHI IN 2013. PHOTO: NORMAN KONRAD

From a faux drive-thru installation to twisted street-bollard sculptures, the work of Berlin-based artist Bettina Pousttchi has long incorporated images of the metropolis. Pousttchi’s latest project, a mock skyline called The City that reaches over 100 feet, tackles urbanity head on. As part of her summer show in Wolfsburg, Germany, she is wrapping the façade of Wolfsburg Castle in a staggered photographic grid of the last 10 buildings to set the record as world’s tallest. The earliest building depicted is New York’s Singer Building, which was completed in 1908, at a height of 612 feet; the most recent is Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, at 2,717 feet. The concept confronts the planned Wolfsburg urban development during World War II. “A former factory town founded in 1938 on Hitler’s orders is a good place to think about nation, history, and modernity,” says Pousttchi.