WHAT REMAINS SUSPENDED
In dialogue with Arthur Hoffmann
FVTVRIST Magazine // Text by Anna S.
2 February 2026
We first came across Arthur Hoffmann’s work at an exhibition in Paris last year, where one installation immediately stood out and stayed with us. More recently, we discovered What Remains Suspended, a work that reveals a more personal and concentrated dimension of his practice.
Developed in close dialogue with a-topos', the installation brings together everyday objects and industrial materials to explore suspension, memory, and absence. In this conversation, Arthur Hoffmann reflects on how the work emerged and where it may lead next, as we look forward to seeing it in a gallery or public space.
Installation view, What Remains Suspended © Courtesy of the artist.
Arthur Hoffmann’s new installation suspends comfort in a state of tension. A chromed mattress— once belonging to the artist’s father and moved out after his death—hovers in levitation, wrapped in barbed wire and held by thin metal cables. An object of rest becomes a vessel of memory, emptied of the body yet charged with its absence.
Below, a grid-like metal pedestal evokes a bed reduced to structure, while a parabole antenna in the background suggests transmission, surveillance, and signals that persist beyond presence. Intimacy turns brittle; protection becomes restraint.
The work speaks of what moves, what comes and goes, what must be flushed away—and what inevitably remains. Avoiding sentimentality, Hoffmann gives form to loss through precision and restraint, holding rest itself in suspension, unresolved between departure and persistence.
John Tayeb (a-topos’), January 2026
Arthur Hoffmann, portrait © Courtesy of the artist.
I recently noticed the black-and-white images you shared from Istanbul. How does this recent trip sit alongside your current practice, including What Remains Suspended?
I spent almost three weeks in Istanbul. It was not planned as a work trip, but very quickly the city started to resonate with me visually. Istanbul is not Brutalist at all, but it is extremely complex, dense, layered, chaotic, and constantly shifting. What interests me today is less about architectural style and more about cities as systems. How they evolve, how they stagnate, how different forces coexist. Istanbul feels unresolved, and that tension is something I am very sensitive to.
Installation view, What Remains Suspended © Courtesy of the artist.
At what point did this experience begin to connect with What Remains Suspended?
That connection appeared through a very intense personal moment. Last year my father passed away, and I found myself emptying his apartment, confronting the material reality of what was left behind. What struck me was how visually close that environment felt to the images I had been taking in Istanbul. The accumulation of objects, the disorder, the sense of displacement, it felt almost like a city in miniature. That parallel became important for me.
One object became central to the installation, the mattress. Why did it stand out?
The mattress is an object associated with rest, intimacy, and the body. In that context, however, it became unstable. It no longer supported anything. It was simply there, displaced. I did not want to treat it as a personal symbol, but as a form capable of carrying tension. It became a way to hold that experience without explaining it.
Installation view, What Remains Suspended © Courtesy of the artist.
Why did suspension become the defining gesture of the work?
Suspension felt like the right condition. It is not about elevation or release. It is about being held in an unresolved state. The mattress is restrained, prevented from functioning as it should. There is also a symbolic layer. In some cultures, the soul is imagined as leaving the body, almost levitating. That image stayed with me. Suspension allowed me to work with absence without turning it into a story.
Industrial materials play a crucial role in the installation. What do they allow you to articulate?
They create distance. Industrial materials are cold, functional, and resistant to emotion, which helps me avoid sentimentality. At the same time, nothing in the installation is arbitrary. Even specific details such as the markings and numbers on the mattress are connected to lived experience. During that period, I was constantly using my car, moving back and forth while emptying my father’s apartment and transporting objects. The car became part of the process, the repetition, the movement, the physical effort. Those elements found their way into the work as fragments of that reality, assembled into a structure that holds together without being illustrative.
Your work has long engaged with Brutalist and industrial architecture. How do those influences operate here?
I was very drawn to Brutalism years ago, but today I am more interested in processes than styles. How cities change, how capitalism shapes space, how some zones are left behind. That interest extends from architecture to everyday environments. What matters is the tension between structure and disorder, not the aesthetic itself.
IN SOME CULTURES, THE SOUL IS IMAGINED AS LEAVING THE BODY, ALMOST LEVITATING. THAT IMAGE STAYED WITH ME. SUSPENSION ALLOWED ME TO WORK WITH ABSENCE WITHOUT TURNING IT INTO A STORY.
The cross appears again in this body of work. How do you approach this form?
It is a symbol that has always returned in my work. I do not approach it as religious. It is structural, abstract, and open. Symbols exist whether we choose them or not. I am interested in using forms that already carry meaning and allowing them to remain unresolved.
In your recent work, Artificial Intelligence has also begun to play a role. How does AI fit into your practice today?
AI does not replace my existing mediums, but has progressively asserted itself as an additional one, alongside photography, painting, and sculpture. It functions primarily as a generative process, allowing new forms to emerge, which are then materialized through 3D printing or fabricated using various metals in collaboration with production workshops.
Installation view, Nihile © Courtesy of the artist.
You developed What Remains Suspended in close dialogue with the curators a-topos'. How did that collaboration shape the project?
It was a real exchange. I brought intuition, images, experience. They brought historical and theoretical perspective. Sometimes I did not even see my own references until they were articulated through conversation. That dialogue helped structure the work without closing it.
Looking ahead, how do you see this work influencing your future practice?
I want to continue working with installation and sculpture, especially in public or semi-public spaces. Photography remains central to my practice, but I am less focused on painting on canvas now. What Remains Suspended has opened a new direction for me, one I want to develop further as a series.
Installation view, Inside The Void © Courtesy of the artist.
AI as Dialogue, Not Instrument
A defining aspect of Hoffmann’s recent practice is the explicit use of artificial intelligence as part of the creative process. Crucially, AI does not appear here as a seamless tool designed to disappear behind results. Instead, it is positioned as a dialogical agent, engaged through iterative exchanges, feedback loops, and negotiated outcomes.
This mode of working resonates strongly with the historical logic of conceptual art. Sol LeWitt’s assertion that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art” displaced authorship from execution to structure. Hoffmann’s engagement with AI can be read as a contemporary extension of this logic: the “machine” is no longer metaphorical but literal, computational, and partially autonomous.
Media theorist Lev Manovich argues that AI systems act as cultural operators that shape not only images but the conditions under which images are imagined and evaluated. By maintaining an explicit back-and-forth with the machine, Hoffmann foregrounds this mediation rather than concealing it. The work thus resists the myth of technological neutrality and instead exposes authorship as distributed, contingent, and negotiated.
Moreover, the use of AI does not replace Hoffmann’s existing mediums but adds itself as another layer alongside photography, painting, and sculptural practice. The machine operates in dialogue with works already in production, allowing everyday objects and architectural fragments to be re-imagined as potential installations through mediated perception. These propositions are later selectively materialized, often in collaboration with production studios or industrial partners. In this way, the work unfolds as a hybrid practice in which intimate space, technological mediation, and collective fabrication converge rather than remain separate.
John Tayeb (a-topos’), January 2026
Installation view, Mechanics of Absence © Courtesy of the artist.
About Arthur Hoffmann
Arthur Hoffmann (b. 1991) is a French contemporary artist living and working in Paris. His practice spans photography, installation, and sculptural production, and is informed by an ongoing interest in architecture and urbanism. His work examines constructed space as a system, focusing on spatial tension, material organization, and the relationship between structure and perception.
He holds a degree in contemporary photography from BTK University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Artificial intelligence has been integrated into his practice as an additional medium, functioning as a generative process that informs the development of new forms. These forms are subsequently materialized through 3D printing or fabricated in various metals, often in collaboration with production workshops. His work engages with questions of suspension, absence, and the psychological impact of space.
