Künstlerhaus Bethanien

In museums and exhibition spaces, entire professions work on the untouchable, inalterable qualities of art. But in his work, Benoît Goupy turns this defence of the status quo on its head. The material and media he employs are the generally undesired effects of human presence on the climatic conditions or of the background architecture on an exhibition space, and investigation into marginal faults in the architectural surroundings.

This art transforms the passive viewer into an active researcher; he becomes a protagonist concerned with the fragile balancing of aesthetic form. In the Künstlerhaus, Goupy will mount two parallel strips of ice onto the wall of the exhibition space, which are initially difficult to distinguish from the completely white surface of the wall. Only when the visitors sense, feel and touch the transient material do changes in temperature cause the art on the wall to shimmer, before it begins to gradually change as a result of the process of perception, making us aware of "the invisible physical forces", "which set us into permanent, but unconscious dialogue with our surroundings." (Benoît Goupy)