For his artist-in-residence stays, Reinhard Gupfinger has devised a method of getting to know the city, a kind of exploring and positioning. Every day, the artist wanders through the town, seeking out new routes and gathering impressions of the unfamiliar surroundings. Equipped with a camera and using materials found on site, Gupfinger uses the city as a temporary exhibition space, elevating it to a stage for his sculptural signs. Sometimes he brings along objects assembled in the studio. Made from materials found locally, these objects incorporate the everyday and the commodity into his experimental sculptural interventions, which inscribe themselves into public space and refer back to it, as they reflect on local references and ways of seeing.

Wherever buildings show visible traces of the ravages of time ‒ cracked walls, rusty pipes, derelict sockets ‒ Gupfinger sees his chance to make a sculptural, performative statement. His combinations of colors and shapes, formed by the objects he finds on the street: discarded signs, barriers, poles and plastic pieces, become minimalistic sculptures that fill these niches, becoming part of the city again and signaling to the viewer that someone has taken a closer look.

Like three dimensional signets, these small miniatures set their stamp on public space, bearing the hallmarks of the artist as well as those of the city itself.