Jason Benson
Jason Benson
b. 1987
Lives and works in Atlanta
Jason Benson’s additive, accumulative works mine the homemade for the ethoses it insinuates, bridging the DIY poles of hobbyist embellishment and post apocalyptic survival. In Benson’s practice, homemade genres become points of departure for work that is once kitsch and punk, cute and sinister—a maximalist collision of industry, craft and artifice. Wreaths distend from neat crowns of foliage to webbed networks choked with cable ties, safety pins, thrifted miscellany, and artificial vegetation. Industrial pipe lamps are tangled in wire, drenched in resin, their economy of design collapsing under the same anarchic logic that drove their invention. Seed bombs, guerilla vehicles of ecological growth, are embellished with abandon and emblazoned with their own user-friendly directions, becoming Benson’s own form of assemblage. And mosaic, a medium that underscores reuse and telegraphs worship, coalesces into images of Benson’s personal cosmology, all the while maintaining the aesthetic of impoverished excess that characterizes his work as a whole.
EDUCATION
| 2019 | Bachelors of Fine Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL |
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
| 2023 | 3 Beggars, Labyrinth, Ojo Caliente, NM |
| 2022 | Take It Easy the Hard Way, T.I.E., Atlanta, GA |
| 2018 | Minuterie is a dying cock, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY |
| 2017 | The Green Dragon, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA Rounds, Wreath, Decatur, GA |
| 2016 | Pyur Knots, Dream, Basel, Switzerland |
| 2015 | Crawlers , Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY |
| 2013 | PH://Dungeon_Mix_[vol.1]://The_Human_Cafe_[vol.1]_[2013]_Clone.Ed.x2013, Queer Thoughts, Chicago, IL |
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
| 2023 | Basement Romance, Romance, Pittsburgh, PA |
| 2018 | Condo New York hosting Crèvecoeur, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY Man-Thing Versus Swamp Thing, Et Al., San Francisco, CA |
| 2016 | Atlanta Biennial, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA Garden Show, Regards, Chicago, IL Piknik na obochine, Exo Exo, Paris, France I Pledge Allegiance, On Stellar Rays, New York, NY |
| 2015 | Great Depression, Balice Hertling, Paris, France System Of A Down, Ellis King, Dublin, Ireland Against Automatism, fused space, San Francisco, CA The Daily Show, Bureau, New York, NY Watching Things Burn, Springsteen, Baltimore, MD 100º City, City Limits, Oakland, CA Tears on My Spider Roll, Violet’s Cafe, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2014 | False Scent, 321 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Four Drawings of a Farmer, Bureau, New York, NY Peace & Love, TG, Nottingham, United Kingdom Last Paint, Mission Comics and Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is, Curated by Et Al at The Lab, San Francisco, CA Another Name For Liar, Lodos, Mexico City, Mexico |
| 2013 | Great Skin, Bodega (Derosia), Philadelphia, PA |
| 2012 | The Field As The Frame The Raster As The Rake, Alter Space, San Francisco, CA |
SELECTED CURATORIAL PROJECTS
| 2016 | Peachtree Industrial, Bodega (Derosia), New York, NY (as Species) |
| 2014 | psy∙cho∙so∙mat∙ic∙ad∙dict∙in∙sane, Interstate Projects, New York, NY (as Important Projects) Ever Y Thing Zen, Jancar Jones Gallery, Los Angeles, California (as Important Projects) |
| 2009-14 | Important Projects, Oakland, CA |
PUBLICATIONS
| 2014 | This Animal Wants to Live, Bodega Press, New York |
SELECTED PRESS
What to see in New York: Curator Phillip March Jones on shows up now, Art in America, December 10, 2018
On View Now: 9 Not-to-Miss Artworks in Downtown NYC, Artspace, November 17, 2018
Fall Preview 2018: 49 Must See Shows This Fall, Vulture, September 6, 2018
The Downward Spiral: Condo New York, Dean Kissick, Spike Art Magazine, July 11, 2018
Five Shows to See at Condo New York, Perwana Nazif, Elephant Magazine, June 26, 2018
Nexus to Now: Project Spaces at Atlanta Contemporary, Logan Lockner, The Rib, April 11, 2018
A Conversation with Jason Benson and Erin Jane Nelson, Stephanie Dowda, ArtsATL, March 1, 2016
A Year in the Galleries of New York, Andrew Russeth, ARTnews, December 29, 2018
From Time Bombs to Fruit Baskets: Goings on in London, New York, and LA, Jamie Sterns, ARTnews, October 27, 2015
Against Automatism at Fused Space, Jeanne Gerrity, Artforum, July 2015
Against Automatism, Anton Stuebner, Art Practical, July 30, 2015
100° City, Jackie Im, Art Practical, May 5, 2015
Four Drawings of a Farmer at Bureau, Alexandra Pechman, ARTnews, October 2014, Print
Flushing Nothing Down the Tubes, Alicia Eler, Hyperallergic, November 18, 2013