Benoît Piéron (FR, 1983)
Residency period: January-March 2025
Born in 1983, Benoît Piéron lives and works in Paris. Having been confronted at an early age with the inevitability of illness, he has developed a comforting, militant, and intimate artistic practice that often takes the form of installations made of weavings, patchworks, and drawings. Using the term “survivance” to describe the organic need to give plasticity to illness, and far removed from the romantic heroism of the usual metaphors for suffering, Piéron situates himself in a cheerful gray area in which he draws inspiration from the hospital ecosystem to produce alternative expressions of illness, where it is seen as a potential. Piéron has also developed a particular interest in the philosophical and existential practice of gardening, questioning the growth, resilience, and sensuality of plants and their various reproductive processes.
Recipient of a residency from the Collection Pinault in Lens in 2022, Piéron has recently shown his work at the CNAC in Grenoble (2024), the Salzburger Kunstverein in Salzburg (2024), the Galerie Sultana and Lafayette Anticipations in Paris (2024), the MUMOK in Vienna and the Chisenhale Gallery in London (2024).
After a period of bee observation with a beekeeper, Piéron will take advantage of his residency at La Becque to build a hive that will produce “grave honey”, playing on the cycle of life and death to create and share food and health products. In addition to his beehive project, Piéron will be making sound recordings of the region’s underground life, using specifically developed sound sensors to probe subterranean breathing.
Benoît Piéron, photo Nanténé Traoré