08/19/2026
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Benôit Maubrey + Hans Peter Kuhn | Audio Jackets (1986)
Seven ordinary people walked through busy parts of downtown Pittsburgh, Oakland, and Shadyside, dressed in ordinary, but identical, denim pants and jackets and white painters' caps. Nonchalant, they moved in a group or alone, waiting for buses, reading newspapers, and window shopping. In their wake was laughter. Bees buzzing. Telephones ringing. Loud hammering. Unintelligible words in another language. Commotion. Coming from them, in unison, broadcast from circular speakers hidden under their jackets, attached to concealed tape players.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Benoît Maubrey (b. 1952, Washington, DC) is the director and founder of DIE AUDIO GRUPPE a Berlin-based art group that build and perform with electronic clothes. In his non-mobile sculptural work he frequently uses former public (disguarded) monuments and recycles them using modern technology and electronics. Since 1982 he has been conceiving and creating interactive sculptures in public spaces.
Artist and composer Hans Peter Kuhn (b. 1952, Germany) was born in Kiel (DE), lives and works in Berlin (DE) and Amino/Kyoto (JP). In 1975 he started his professional career at the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer in Berlin (now Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz).
After Kuhn left the Schaubühne in 1979, he concentrated on his own artistic work and created since then a huge body of work. He mainly created sound- and light installations, radioplays, composed film music, and music and environments for theatre and dance.
The most prestigious award was the “Golden Lion” of the Venice Biennale 1993 that was given to Robert Wilson and Kuhn for the installation “Memory/Loss”. Since 2012 he is a guest professor at the the master class Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin (DE).
Learn more here: https://mattress.org/art/art-archive/
