BENNET SCHLESINGER at SIGNAL Gallery. Courtesy of the gallery.
BENNET SCHLESINGER at SIGNAL Gallery. Courtesy of the gallery.
Schlesinger’s press release is comprised of mostly this quote: “…It is not surprising that it is among solitary ‘travellers’ of the last c e n t u r y – not among professional travellers or scientists, but travellers on impulse or for unexpected reasons – that we are most likely to find prophetic evocations of space in which neither identity, nor relations, nor history really makes any sense; spaces in which solitude is experienced as an overburdening or emptying of individuality, in which only the movement of fleeting images enables the observer to hypothesize the existence of a past and glimpse the possibility of a future.”
– Marc Augé, from Non-Places
BENNET SCHLESINGER at SIGNAL Gallery. Courtesy of the gallery.
BENNET SCHLESINGER at SIGNAL Gallery. Courtesy of the gallery.
When asked about the connection between his previous solo show,”Atlas” and the title of a small black latex painting, “geographic tongue” in his most recent show “On The Bleached Sun (A Turbine)”, Schlesinger had this to say: “Geographic tongue is an allergic reaction to acidic foods, its a kind of topographical effect, you can look up images, I like the body/ environment connection. The way I make art, its always about getting out of my head, into where I am, the transit between the two is important.”
BENNET SCHLESINGER at SIGNAL Gallery. Courtesy of the gallery.
Schlesinger texts this response to me as I drive through Winslow Arizona on my way to New Mexico. Physically in transit, I’m forced to consider geography; I think about the quote from Marc Auge and try to apply it to the text message I’ve just received and then to the rest of the exhibition, and then to art. I think about the way an art work becomes a navigational device, a snap shot of space traveled, in real life, translated in the mind, then deposited back into life. The “transit” Schlesinger refers to is the evidence, the tangible product, it is also a method for travel without having to leave ones geographical location, in this case, a studio in green point. Schlesinger’s work, latex paintings on board and larger bus shelter like steel structures, serve as a document of continuous navigation of space or transit, a state of mental transience, in which art ideas can occupy.
ON THE BLEACHED SUN (A TURBINE) is on view until June 28th, 2013. If your in Brooklyn, NY find time to see this exhibition.
For more information visit here.
– Contributed by Alberto Cuadros
