Haus am Waldsee shows from 2nd. October 2025 the exhibition Weathering by the American artist Beverly Buchanan (born 1940, Fuquay, North Carolina, died 2015, Ann Arbor, Michigan).
Image above: Beverly Buchanan, Photo: Marsh Ruins, 1981, Farbfotografie, 3,5 x 5 Zoll, Courtesy of the Estate of Beverly Buchanan und Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York.
Marking a place, a material, an event and at the same time letting go characterises her artistic work. Her work opens up a tense space between presence and absence, which is dedicated to the ephemeral and consciously eludes the pursuit of control and monumentality. Buchanan’s approach to dissolution and decay testifies to a quiet rebellion and a confidence that is rooted in the poetics of lived experience and is inseparable from the inscriptions of history in the landscape.
In dialogue with the dominant artistic movements of her time, Buchanan’s practice carves out its own terrain that is deeply rooted in the historical, material and emotional conditions of African American life. By integrating simple dwellings and landscapes that bear witness to resistance, loss and invention into her work, Buchanan creates a different understanding of what it means to remember. Her works are not monuments, but express an attentive perception of the stories that are inscribed in the built environment, in nature and in landscapes, and yet remain excluded from official narratives.
The title of the exhibition, Weathering, refers to Buchanan’s endeavour to place her works in a direct dialogue with the elements. Her sculptures are exposed to the weather, the tides and the changing seasons. They are designed to change, gradually erode and eventually disintegrate.
This openness to natural processes also reflects a deeper conceptual dimension: the cumulative effects of chronic social and economic stress on the human body. Just as Buchanan’s materials yield to the forces of nature, her works point to the embodied consequences of long-term structural violence, where physical deterioration is not only biological, but also social and historical.
The exhibition spans Beverly Buchanan’s wide-ranging oeuvre and is the artist’s first survey exhibition in Germany. It brings together works from all creative phases, from early works on paper, in which Buchanan deals with the increasing gentrification of New York in the 1970s, to critically humorous writings and artists’ books. In her later work, Buchanan addresses the complex history of the rural southeastern United States through site-specific interventions or architecture in miniature, which she borrows from the characteristic building styles of the region and its inhabitants.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new work by the British artist Ima-Abasi Okon (born 1981 in London, lives between London and Amsterdam), which traces the traces of desire that run through Buchanan’s work. Okon picks up on these motifs by taking Buchanan’s deep connection with her environment as a starting point and symbolically turning the outside inwards.
A seminar taking place in parallel to the preparation and presentation of the exhibition is jointly organised by Menzel-Dach (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Kunst im Kontext (Universität der Künste Berlin) under the direction of Jakob Schillinger and Karina Griffith. It focuses on the exploration of Buchanan’s work in relation to the history and present of Black Diaspora art in Germany. Designed as a practice-oriented course, it serves as a platform for students to develop ideas for a public programme to accompany the exhibition at Haus am Waldsee.
Beverly Buchanan. Weathering was developed with the support of gta exhibitions (ETH Zurich, CH), Fisk University (Nashville, Tennessee, USA) and the Mildred Thompson Estate (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) as well as in collaboration with 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine (Metz, FR) and Spike Island (Bristol, UK).
WHEN?
Opening: Wednesday, 1st. October 2025, 7 pm.
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 2nd. October, 2025 – Sunday, 1st. February 2026
Press conference: Wednesday, 1st. October 2025, 11 am. | With registration
WHERE?
Haus am Waldsee
Argentinische Allee 30
14163 Berlin
