This event will be conducted in-person in room 315F and through Zoom. 

For Zoom attendance, please register in advance here.

This presentation will lead a reflective discussion about mistakes and failures in the process of 'making'. Despite the frustration they may evoke, failures hold immense potential for discovering new materials and venturing into uncharted technical realms leading to the 'nirvana' of unexpected material encounters

Raphael Hefti’s experimental approach to sculpture is fueled by a fascination with industrial and postindustrial processes, which he appropriates, reverses, and at times even explodes. His intense dialogue with industries and specialists exposes inherent material truths underlying conventional processes. Operating somewhere between desecration and veneration, his unexpected sculptures evoke ambiguity between the natural and the industrial, abstraction and objectivity. Material essence is celebrated by reaching beyond technical purpose, often under the light of Murphy’s Law. Hefti was born in 1978 in Switzerland, and grew up in Biel/Bienne. He completed an apprenticeship as an electronics engineer and then studied at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He has had exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam), Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, Nottingham Contemporary, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Camden Art Centre in London.

The in-person event is open to current Cooper Union students, faculty, and staff only. The public may attend this event through Zoom.