In the work of Andrea Büttner (Stuttgart, Germany, 1972), Art History and Aesthetics are confronted with ethical and social issues, particularly the themes of shame, poverty, the Catholic religion and labour. Despite including a variety of media, from sculpture and painting to video and installation, her practice is characterised by the use of once underestimated manual techniques, from which the artist raises critical reflections on the systems of valuing handicrafts and their relationship to the intimate and domestic sphere.

Although her work is based on abstract formal codes, the body is omnipresent and can be perceived in the artist’s handmade creations; in her synthetic abstractions of the human figure, like in the series of woodcut prints Beggars; or the trivial movement of fingers over a smartphone’s screen, as in Phone Etchings. In many instances, Andrea Büttner presents the body as a receptacle through which the themes of her work interrelate.

Little Works, 2007

Video, 10’42’’

Courtesy of the artist.

In Little Works (2007), the artist shows glimpses of the daily life of a closed order of Carmelite nuns, inhabitants of The Most Holy Trinity convent in Notting Hill, London. Unable to access the space, Andrea Büttner shoots the film from a camera given to one of the sisters of the order, who records conversations and the moments in which the nuns engage in the creation of what they call “small works” — handicraft objects made by the sisters during their leisure time. Within the microcosm of this secular religious order, the relationship between labour and productivity takes on less rigid contours, revealing its deeply contemplative and liberating character. When presented at the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova, the work takes on a universal meaning, transcending geographical and temporal barriers.