PARIS-SCOPE: Benoît Pype

Mixed Greens announces the third installment of Paris-Scope, a series of peculiar, collaborative exhibitions that give visitors to Mixed Greens a glimpse into Paris-based Projective City’s newest gallery space. Operating as a kind of alchemical experiment into the possibilities of “action at a distance,” viewers are able to peer into (but obviously not enter) the space both thousands of miles away and inches from their grasp—to mystically be both HERE and THERE simultaneously. The Paris-Scope series allows artists unprecedented control over the gallery space, and focuses on ambitious solo installations. The third exhibition showcases the elegant work of French artist Benoît Pype. For the first time in his career, Paris-Scope allows Pype to fill an entire gallery space with his delicate sculpture.

Benoît Pype’s practice calls attention to scale and lavishes care on overlooked items. In one series, for example, he creates very specific supports for neglected natural elements: a tiny carrying case for a drop of water, a crutch for a blade of grass, a series of shelves for willow leaves. In his work Geographie Transitoire, maps of major world cities are die-cut into enormous leaves, whose veins and patterns resonate with the latticework of urban spaces. Slowly the leaves decompose, forming a fictional and ephemeral city.

This preoccupation with small, disregarded detail leads Pype to a poetic and witty practice. For some time he has crafted small pedestals for the display of micro-sculptures made from pocket lint. Quotidian, tiny, and insignificant materials transform into aesthetic monuments. For Paris-Scope, Pype is finally able to push the work to a greater extreme by blowing up the scale of the lint balls. Increased by several orders of magnitude, the work still maintains a curious, if somewhat ominous and uncanny presence. Pype’s work is meticulous and thoughtful, and by devoting an entire gallery space to the careful preservation and display of pocket lint sculpture, the double-edged sword of his project develops an even sharper blade.

Benoît Pype studied fine art in Monpellier, France, and, most recently, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Since graduating in 2011 he has been involved in several noteworthy exhibitions and projects, including a 2012 solo project at the prestigious Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of their “Modules” program. He has also completed an extended residency at Buitenwerkplaats, Amsterdam, and most recently exhibited in Venezuela at the MAC in Maracay. Pype lives and works in Paris, France.

Projective City, under the direction of Benjamin Evans, aims to advance, promote, and make visible the work of emerging artists through an ongoing, flexible, and interconnected series of projects. Working on the assumption that bigger is rarely better, projects are for the most part designed to be smaller-scale and more intimate, aiming for personal encounters between artists, artworks, and audiences. Projective City’s gallery space is located at 34 Rue Hélene Brion, Paris 13eme, and, for the time being, through a peephole at Mixed Greens.


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