Pavel
Zoubok Gallery is pleased to present Play Land, an exhibition of new works by
Jane Benson that explore contemporary geo-cultural disruptions through division
and rupture. The exhibition centers on Finding Baghdad (Part A), a dual-channel
video installation broadcasting an intimate, virtual duet between two Iraqi
brothers who fled Baghdad in the early 2000s.
Finding
Baghdad (Part A) begins with the splitting of two mass-produced Iraqi
instruments, an oud and a djoze. Radically altering their long-honed aesthetic
conventions, this gesture requires a pair of musicians to play both
half-instruments in order to activate a full tonal range. Once meticulously
re-engineered, these fragments are sent to each of the brothers whose duet
bridges the living rooms of their far-flung new homes in Cologne, Germany and
Sanad, Bahrain. Using Skype as a platform for extraterritorial exchange,
Finding Baghdad (Part A) investigates how traditional objects and digital
technologies can create resonant new forms of transnational communication in a
century already defined by global upheaval and evolving patterns of diaspora.
Play Land
also engages sculpture, drawing and weaving to expand upon the themes of
division and connection explored in the dual-channel video. The sculptural
series A Place for Infinite Tuning re-contextualizes Benson’s performable
fragments atop mirrored platforms whose slender, angled legs evoke a sense of
perpetual ambulation. In her lalala landscapes, a spectral suite of drawings
render a single musical note in long graphite rows, creating shifting horizons
as the viewer reads the somber melody. Family Portrait, the final body of work
included in Play Land, references the brothers’ dispersed family, as well as
future iterations of Benson’s split performances. These woven compositions of
primary color integrate strands of shredded flags, obscuring and revealing
emblems from all of the countries in which the brother’s immediate family now
live: Iraq, Bahrain, Germany, Norway, United Arab Emirates, United States,
Turkey and China.
Benson
premiered The Splits at The Abrons Arts Center in 2011 with a performance of
chamber music scored in collaboration with New York composer Matt Schickele.
Subsequent iterations of this project took place at The Aldrich Museum,
Ridgefield, CT in 2012 and at the Queens Museum, Queens, NY in 2013. Trained at
the Edinburgh College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
Benson has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions
at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY; Black and White Gallery, New York,
NY; Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver; Roebling Hall, New York, NY; the Chicago
Project Room, Chicago, IL and the Scottish National Museum of Modern Art,
Edinburgh. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at MoMA P.S.1, Long
Island City, NY; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY; the San Jose Museum of
Art, San Jose, TX; The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC and the Bury
Museum, England. This is her first solo exhibition at Pavel Zoubok Gallery.
Venue name:
Pavel Zoubok
Address:
531 W 26th St, New York City
Cross
street: between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
Opening
hours: Tue–Sat 10am-6pm
Transport:
Subway: C, E to 23rd St (Eighth Ave)
Post a Comment