Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (1973) is a Montreal-born artist, diarist and researcher. His practice mediates emotional encounters with musical, botanical, art historical, and queer cultural material, encouraging deep listening and empathic viewing. In his work you will find audio guides, bells, bouquets, ceramic vases, enchanted forests, folding screens, gay elders, glitter, gold leaf, love letters, imaginary paintings, madrigals, megaphones, mirrors, naked men, private libraries, sex-changing flowers, sign language, subtitles, woodwinds, wrapping paper, and the voices of birds, boy sopranos, contraltos, countertenors, and sirens.

His work has exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Tiroler Kunstpavillon (Innsbruck), Dazibao Centre de Photographies Actuelles (Montreal), and the Staatsbibliothek (Stuttgart); and numerous group exhibitions including the Frankfurter Kunstverein (Frankfurt), The Power Plant Gallery of Contemporary Art (Toronto), Kunsthallen Nikolaj (Copenhagen), the Schwules Museum (Berlin), and the Red Brick House (Yokohama), among others.

His video work has been screened at film and media art festivals across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has won awards in Canada, Germany, Poland, and Portugal. His sound and video work is part of the permanent collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), The Polin Museum for the History of Polish Jews (Warsaw), Thielska Galleriet (Stockholm), and The National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa).

Nemerofsky completed a practice-led PhD at the Edinburgh College of Art in 2019, where he was part of Cruising the 70s: Unearthing Pre-HIV/AIDS Queer Sexual Cultures, a three-year research project led by art historians, cultural anthropologists, and artists in Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. His doctoral research critically examined the museum audio guide as a media form, turning to queer theory and contemporary museum mediation practice to expand and critically reimagine its potential.

Nemerofsky is currently one of nine inaugural artists-in-residence at the Fondation Fiminco, a new cultural institution in Romainville, France. He is a core tutor for the Masters of Artistic Research programme at the Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague, Netherlands.

Curriculum Vitae

Contact Nemerofsky by e-mail

^{Photos by Lila Neutre and Bastien Pourtout}