Mark Benson

(Odds Are) 13-1: Part III at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, CCA

Posted in Artwork, exhibitions, News by Mark Benson on April 29, 2011

I am excited to announce I will be participating in a group show this Tuesday, May 3 at the Wattis Residency Apartment. Opening reception is May 3, 6 – 8 pm. Details here and below.

(Odds Are) 13:1

Capp Street Project residency apartment:

50 15th Street (at De Haro), San Francisco

May 3–7, 2011

Public reception: Tuesday, May 3, 6-8 pm
Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, 11 am-7 pm; Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 11 am-6 pm

Thirteen artists and one curator were assigned to put together an exhibition in less than a month. The result is an exhibition in a pop-up space: a one-bedroom apartment used intermittently as temporary housing for visiting artists to the Wattis. In his essay “The ghosts in the machine,” the renowned architect Alexander Gorlin makes a case for Le Corbusier as a surrealist architect: “Le Corbusier and the Surrealists alike sought to jolt man’s perception of the world through the deliberate reversal of the expected, and the juxtaposition of the banal with the extraordinary.” (Odds Are) 13:1 applies this idea to a group exhibition.

The works are tied together by their attempt to estrange the familiar. Many of them were commissioned for a particular space within the apartment, and the curator inhabited the apartment during the exhibition’s development. What remains is evidence of both habitation and abandonment. The domestic space has been arranged into something unknown. Visitors are encouraged to snoop around, to discern the real from the fictitious.

The exhibition is curated by Jessica Brier, assistant to the photography department at SFMOMA. It features new work by students from CCA’s Graduate Program in Fine Arts: Simone Bailey, Mark Benson, JJ Campanaro, Daniel Dallabrida, Melissa Dickenson, Elizabeth Dorbad, Christine Elfman, Liam Everett, Bean Gilsdorf, Stephanie Halmos, Radka Pulliam, Ida Roden and Jonathan Runcio.

Mark Benson; Poison; Inkjet Print; 19.75 x 29 inches, 2011

Hammarby! Part II at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, CCA

Posted in Artwork, exhibitions by Mark Benson on April 12, 2011

Mirror Ball; Mirror, paper honeycomb ball, Magic Tape; 45 x 45 x 12 inches; 2011

There Were Puppies

Posted in Artwork, exhibitions by Mark Benson on April 12, 2011

Good Times, Great Escape; Puppies, Financial Times newspaper, handler, wood, paint, stair case, Renewzit air fresheners, doggie door; 2011, on the occasion of CCA's open studios

Good Times, Great Escape; Puppies, Financial Times newspaper, handler, wood, paint, stair case, Renewzit air fresheners, doggie door; 2011, on the occasion of CCA's open studios

Good Times, Great Escape; Puppies, Financial Times newspaper, handler, wood, paint, stair case, Renewzit air fresheners, doggie door; 2011, on the occasion of CCA's open studios


CCA Open Studios 2011: There Will Be Puppies

Posted in Uncategorized by Mark Benson on April 7, 2011

CCA Open Studios 2011

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