Jane Benson
2011 Swing Space Resident, 14 Wall Street, Vault
Jane Benson is a sculptor and installation artist whose work explores the transition and transformation of both physical materials and aesthetic identity. She was born in England and now lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from Edinburgh College of Art (1994) and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1997). She had exhibited in national and international venues including PS1 MoMA; Sculpture Center; Socrates Sculpture Park; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Solo shows include The Mews, at Thierry Goldberg Projects, New York; Chronicles of Narcissism, Black & White Gallery, New York and Underbush, Roebling Hall, New York. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Pollack-Krasner, the Fulbright Scholarship and the New Views: World Financial Center Residency, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews and the New Yorker among others.
Jane Benson’s current project extends her ongoing interest in transformation into the realm of collaboration and performance. The Splits begins with the bisecting of various string instruments into two halves, cutting them along their length, creating two separate instruments. The two halves must then be played together to complete a tune and are, thus, for duets (or quartets, octets or dectets) only—pieces which she is creating in collaboration with musicians and composers. The act of splitting at once destroys the integrity of the instrument as an object, and disrupts the conventional process of aesthetic creation that the instrument traditionally permits. Splitting is not merely an act of destruction, however. It also opens graceful passages for imagined evolution: the split instrument becomes a newly creative instrument, permitting the creation not only of new music, but new communities (visual artist, the composer, the musicians, and the audience).
During her time in residence, Benson is working towards the premiere performance of The Splits that will involve various “split” duets, octets and dectets and will be held at Henry Street Settlement: Abrons Art Center on February 27th, 2011.
