When can the exhibition LIGHT TOUCHED be visited?

The exhibition can be seen from August 27, 2026, to January 2, 2027. The regular opening hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

What is the admission fee?

Admission to the exhibition is free.

Is the exhibition accessible for everyone?

Yes, the exhibition is barrier-free across three floors of Palais Bellevue.

What works can be seen in the exhibition?

Displayed are handmade watermark papers, watermark words, installations with multiple paper layers, as well as works referencing Christa Wolf, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Gaston Bachelard, and Marina Tsvetaeva.

Are there accompanying events?

Yes. The accompanying program includes talks, a leporello workshop, a reading, and a conversation with Brigitte Zypries. Registration is required for the workshop.

Where is the exhibition taking place?

LIGHT TOUCHED takes place at Palais Bellevue - Salon, Schöne Aussicht 2, 34117 Kassel.

LIGHT TOUCHED: How paper, light, and language transform Kassel's Palais Bellevue

Name: LIGHT TOUCHED
Start: 2026-10-04T10:00:00+02:00
End: 2027-01-02T16:00:00+01:00
Location: Palais Bellevue - Salon

LIGHT TOUCHED: When paper begins to glow in Palais Bellevue

Barbara Beisinghoff transforms the Palais Bellevue in Kassel into a poetic resonance space with handmade watermark papers, light, and language. The exhibition LIGHT TOUCHED invites a decelerated contemplation of the works, where the interior and the outside world, historical architecture and contemporary paper art connect with each other.

An aesthetic experience in backlight

Delicate watermark sheets hover in front of the windows of Palais Bellevue. Only in backlight do filigree signs, letters, and image spaces come to the fore. The changing daylight causes the paper works to move, glow, and recede again. This creates a special exhibition atmosphere between the visible and the invisible.

The historical building becomes an active component of the installation. Windows, spatial axes, shadows, and transparent materials shape a quiet, sensual composition. Light appears not just as mere illumination, but as a dynamic artistic force that changes perception and spatial effect.

Watermarks, literature, and space

On the ground floor, visitors encounter two works in front of the semi-circular supraporte windows. The poetic starting point refers to the Sohar, the Book of Splendor, in which the first spark of light is also understood as the first word.

On the first floor, a visual axis connects the ocher-colored watermark in the fireplace room with the white work Light of the eye and of the mind in the opposite room. The reduced color scheme directs the gaze to subtle transitions between surface, transparency, and immateriality.

On the second floor, watermark words from Christa Wolf's Kassandra appear. In the Astronomical Room, further works take up the history of Palais Bellevue, which Landgrave Karl had built in 1714 for astronomical studies. A showcase displays the artist book Copper Engravings Inhabit from Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space as well as a white sheet with words from a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva, written with a water jet.

Barbara Beisinghoff and the art of paper

Barbara Beisinghoff's work includes color etchings, artists' books, handmade papers, watermarks, and site-specific installations. Her artistic practice operates at the intersection of graphics, paper art, and poetic material research. Paper thus transforms from a medium for images into an independent medium for writing, memory, light, and movement.

Under the vaulted arch of the library, three levels of watermarks slowly rotate over each other. This installation makes the temporality of perception physically tangible: forms shift, signs appear and disappear as light reveals the delicate nuances of the material.

Accompanying program for the exhibition

The accompanying program expands the exhibition with talks, literature, and cultural education. Planned are a conversation with art historian Susanne Jakubzcyk, a leporello workshop with Susanne Mihm-Lutz, the reading The World in the Window with prose and letters from Rosa Luxemburg to James Salter, as well as a conversation with Brigitte Zypries, former Federal Minister. Registration is required for the workshop.

Conclusion: Light as a dynamic encounter

LIGHT TOUCHED offers a concentrated art experience in which paper, language, architecture, and daylight interweave. The barrier-free exhibition spanning three floors opens up an intense aesthetic experience and invites visitors to perceive the boundaries between image, text, and space anew. Those who want to experience the quiet power of watermarks and backlight firsthand should definitely visit this exhibition at Palais Bellevue live.