Past Residents
Past Resident2012: Danish Arts Foundation
Benandsebastian
Artist duo, benandsebastian use the language of architecture to discuss the relationship between a person’s surroundings and the human mind and body. For the artists, architecture not only represents the buildings we inhabit, but also symbolizes a way of thinking that is explored through mythical stories, utopian models, economic systems and power relations. Their work has taken inspiration from such eclectic sources as medieval rituals, romantic ruins, office politics and a Manhattan urban legend. A common thread running through the work is the artist group’s interest in physical and conceptual absences that inspire memory projection, familiarity and longing as ways of filling in the gaps.
Ben Clement (born 1981 in Oxford, United Kingdom) and Sebastian de la Cour (born 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark) work together under the name benandsebastian. They live and work in both Copenhagen and Berlin. Lecturers at the School of Architecture, Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen since 2007 and Guest Professors at the School of Architecture in Aarhus, Denmark since 2011, benandsebastian are graduates of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Phantom Limbs, Trapholt Museum, Kolding, Denmark (2012); Phantom Limbs, Museum of Art and Design, Copenhagen (2011); and Unbuilt Extremities, Friedelstrasse 27, Berlin (2011). Group shows include: Treffpunkt:Berlin, Arken, Copenhagen (2012) and Skulptur I Eventyrhaven, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark (2011).
Events & Exhibitions
Brooklyn Commons: Fred Wilson and benandsebastian
September 4, 2012
Residents from Denmark
Past Resident2012: Carclew Youth Arts
Amy Joy Watson
Amy Joy Watson examines the human propensity for imagining different and better worlds from a highly personal and idiosyncratic point of view. There is the presence of a childlike alter ego in the work, suggesting a subtle sense of nostalgia for the joys of childhood play and a way of seeing mystery and possibility in everything. Eccentric objects and environments such as mutant clams with gobstoppers for pearls and machines that fly helium balloon, come from the artist’s imagination. The imagined worlds of childhood are transcribed through the adult patience and refinement of her painstaking production methods. Watson often employs delicate hand-stitching of segments of finely cut balsa wood to create geometric forms. The recent inclusion of unexpected outré materials – helium balloons, glow-in-the-dark pigments and glitter – have caused these works to wobble, spin, glisten and levitate.
Amy Joy Watson (born 1987 in Adelaide, Australia) completed a Bachelor of Visual Art with honors in 2008 graduating from Adelaide Central School of Art. Watson has shown in various solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia including a solo exhibition at GRANTPIRRIE Gallery in Sydney and at the Contemporary Art Center of South Australia’s Project Space. She undertook a two-month studio residency at Takt Kunstprojektraum, Berlin in 2009. Watson has been successful in winning several CARCLEW, Helpmann and Arts SA grants and was awarded the 2011 CARCLEW Ruth Tuck Travelling Scholarship. She has received various awards locally and internationally, including the 3rd Ward Brooklyn Open Call Early Entry Prize in 2011. Howard was awarded the 2011 Adelaide Critics Circle Contemporary Art Award and won the 2009 Core Energy Group Sculpture Award and the 2009 SAlife Emerging Artist Award.
Past Resident2012: Artadia
Allison Smith
Allison Smith’s artistic practice investigates the material culture of historical reenactment and the role of craft in constructions of national and gender identities. Invoking various forms of public convocation such as battle reenactments, peddlers’ markets, quilting bees, military musters, parades and craft fairs, Smith uses a range of tactile media such as textiles, ceramics, printmaking and wood furniture to produce performative sculptures, interactive installations and artist-led pubic events that redo, restage and refigure our sense of collective memory. Smith’s large-scale sculptures take on an artifact quality through their association with events and their engagement with the public, whether through activities of collective making, activation in social space or material transformation from one context to the next.
Allison Smith (born 1972 in Manassas, Virginia) lived in New York from 1990 until 2008 when she relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area to join the faculty of California College of the Arts, where she is Chair of the Sculpture Program. She completed her undergraduate studies at Parsons School of Design and her graduate studies at Yale University School of Art and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Smith has produced solo exhibitions and artist-led projects for Public Art Fund, SFMOMA, MCA Denver and Berkeley Art Museum MATRIX Series, among others. She has contributed her work to museum surveys at MASS MoCA, CAM Houston, Creative Time, Andy Warhol Museum, P.S.1 MoMA, Palais de Tokyo, The Mattress Factory and many more.