Bettina

A mythical artist from New York in the 60s and 70s, living as a recluse in the Chelsea Hotel from 1972 on, Bettina Grossman (1928- 2021)—Bettina to the art world—developed a prolific body of works for more than sixty years. This monographic book is the first to present her exceptional research on photography, cinematogra­phy and graphic design, nourished by the practice of conceptual sculpture. This book is the winner of the 6th edition of the LUMA Rencontres Dummy Book Award Arles in 2020.

An eccentric personality, totally dedicated to her art, Bettina resided in the Chelsea Hotel from 1972 following the fire in her studio in which she lost all her archives. Living like a recluse in this community of artists, Bettina produces and accumulates in her tiny studio a considerable body of work that is fully in line with the great history of the artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century. His pieces are suspended in the studio, hung on the walls, placed on the floor: they invade the space in a continuum leading to vertigo, the artistic gesture becomes a physical and visual experience. On the borders of abstraction, Bettina manipulates, twists, spreads, stretches matter, light and shadow. His serial practice reveals a hypnotic universe of great visual power.

In 2019, the Franco-Moroccan photographer Yto Barrada exhibited some pieces of Bettina at LMCC’s, in New York, which allowed the rediscovery of her work. Barrada gains the confidence of Bettina who opens for the first time her archives in which Yto Barrada and Gregor Huber will delve for almost three years. They imagine a book with the complicity of Bettina until the latter’s death on November 2, 2021, at the age of 94, which brings to light a major work produced by an iconic artist.