BEN PETERSON
WORKS
VIDEOS
ARTIST STATEMENT
The studio serves as a nexus for catharsis, experimentation, and play. Using clay, ceramic, foam, wire, wood, fabric, and paint, I build sculptures and installations that serve as props and sets for performances. These activities are developed and documented through photography and video, exploring the intersections of sculpture, performance, and digital technology. Following this process, I edit the archive of images and objects into finished sculptures, photographs, videos, and short films.
Conceptually, clay and ceramic objects often reflect a purposeful restraint of the scatological nature of the material, projecting conservative values onto the materials and objects themselves. These objects function as “good aesthetic citizens,” representing status quo tastes of austerity, elegance, and purity. In this sense, the mass cultural production of objects polices our homes and architecture, constructing institutions and environments that repress self-expression, individuality, ugliness, and the impure.
My conceptual process deploys criticality and humor to ameliorate negative memories of bullying, anxiety, self-loathing, and conflicted identities through a cheerful degeneracy of masculine tropes. I grew up in a conservative small harbor town on Lake Michigan. By making artwork that associates clay and the ceramic with sensuality, sexuality, and transgression, I am building a nuanced critique of a eld of institutionalized tastes – pushing back against cultural and aesthetics values that I find representative of oppression.
BIOGRAPHY
Education
2011 - Master of Fine Arts, Ceramics, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, RI
2002 - Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ceramics & Photography, Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing, MI
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
2018 - 2D or Not 2D, Air Mattress Gallery, NY, NY (curator: Mark DeMuro)
2018 - Love 2018: Purple Hearts, LeRoy Neiman Center for Print, Columbia University, NY, NY (curator: Rachel Stern)
2017 - Plate Party - Hosted by FPOAFM Nomadic Arts/Craft Collective, Calico Gallery Brooklyn, NY
2017 - Crafting Resistance, Spoke Art Gallery, New York, NY (to benefit Lambda Legal)
2017 - The Dangerous Professors, Triumph, Chicago, IL (curator: Ruslana Lichtzier)
2017 - DIGITAL DOCUMENT: Virtual Academia, Tansient & Perpetual, Plush Factory, Clark Mills, NY
2017 - The Fish Cutter, Kuhn Collection, Berlin, Germany (performance)
2017 - A Visual Disturbance, ROCKELMANN& Hauptstraße 77 Pop-up, Berlin, Germany (screening of A Love That Will Never Grow Old, curator: Kat Rickard)
2017 - No Survivors, ROCKELMANN&, Berlin, Germany (solo)
2017 - Craft Action: Genre Bending, College Art Association NYC 2017, NY, NY (screening of Dick & Ben: No Survivors)
2016 - The Gnome Show, Stern Garden, NY, NY (curator: Sara Stern)
2016 - Sweet and Slippery Slope: The art of sex and sexuality, Victor F. Keen Gallery, Clay Arts Vegas, Las Vegas, NV
2016 - UNEARTHED, ROCKELMANN&, Berlin, Germany (curators: Geo Gonzalez & Dan Halm)
2016 - LOVE 2016, LeRoy Neiman Center for Print, Columbia University, NY, NY (curator: Rachel Stern)
2015 - Queer WAH: Contemporary LGBTQ Artists, Williamsburgh Art and Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY (curator: Richard Sanchez)
2015 - Away Game, Klapper Hall Gallery, Queens College, NY, NY
2015 - The Bodies with One Ton of Clay, Props, and Audience Participation, 2015 NCECA Conference: Project Space, Providence, RI (four-day installation & performance)
2014 - The Portrait Show, LeRoy Neiman Center for Print, Columbia University, NY, NY
2014 - Faculty Exhibition, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Metro Campus, Teaneck, NJ
2014 - The 6th International “EliteTile” Triennial, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, DR
2014 - Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA (film screening)
2013 - Medium/Rare, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (curator: Elaine Komorowski)
2013 - BYO ART, The Living Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2013 - Asshole in the Gallery, Loft 594, Brooklyn, NY (curator: Patricia Maldonado)
2012 - The 8th International Clay and Glass Film Festival, Montpellier, France
2012 - Feed Me | Heel Me, Thomas Hunter Projects, New York, NY (solo)
2011 - Middling , Gowanus Ballroom, Brooklyn, NY (curator: Margaret Coleman)
2011 - Chain-Letter , Samson Projects, Boston, MA
2011 - International Ceramix Biennale 2011 International Competition , Korea Ceramics Foundation, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea
2011 - RISD MFA Thesis Exhibition 2011 , Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI
2011 - Honestly? , 65 Eddy Street, Providence, RI
2011 - Digital Plastic , Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI
2011 - Video Screening Room , NCECA, Tampa, FL (screening of Cup )
2011 - Ceramic Projects: Science & Industry , Museum of Science & Industry, Tampa, FL
2011 - The Body , The Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI
2011 - Beyond the Brickyard , The Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT (juror: Paul Mathieu)
2010 - Alliance of Artists Communities 20th Annual Conference , Eco-Arts Space, Providence, RI
2010 - RISD Expose , Art and Design Showcase, Providence, RI
2010 - Ceramics Triennial , Woods-Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI
2010 - Somewhere In the Middle , Black Sheep Projects, Providence, RI
2010 - Column, The Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI
2009 - Cracked , Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI
2009 - The Discoverarium: Experiments in Metainquiry , BBC Gallery, Tallahassee, FL
2008 - Haptic Screen , National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, FL
2008 - Small Favors III , The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
2008 - FSU Ceramics Showcase , Oglesby Union Art Gallery, Tallahassee, FL
2008 - Clay? II , Kirkland Arts Center, Kirkland, WA
2008 - Ceramic Objects/Conceptual Material , DDP Gallery, Fayeteville, AR (juror: John Perreault)
2008 - The Tile Project, Destination: The World , KU Art Center, Beijing, China & Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad, India
2007 - National Ceramics Exhibition , Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence, KS
2007 - Inside & Out: Ceramic Bodies , Oglesby Union Art Gallery, Tallahassee, FL (two-person)
2006 - Skin Deep , Francis Marion University, Florence, SC (juror: Val Cushing)
Honors & Awards
2015 - Academic Affairs Travel Funding Award, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY (shipment of work to Queer WAH exhibition)
2015 - Adjunct-CET Professional Development Grant, Hunter College, NY, NY (travel award for installation and performance at NCECA)
2015 - Project Space Proposal Award, 2015 National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Conference: Lively Experiments, Providence, RI
2014 - Fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA
2011-12 - Artist in Residence, Ceramics Department, Hunter College, NY, NY
2011 - Recognition Award, Korea Ceramics Foundation, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea Academic Honors, RISD, Providence, RI
2011 - Jurors Choice, Beyond the Brickyard, The Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT
2010 - Student Scholarship Award, NCECA Critical Santa Fe Conference, Santa Fe, NM
2010 - Graduate Studies Grant, RISD Office of Graduate Studies
2010 - Sightings Award 2010: Museum as Action, RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI
2009-11 - Graduate Fellowship and Teaching Assistantship, RISD
2007 - Lenore G. Tawney Scholar, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
Bibliography
Aaron C. Thomas, “Openness and Closure,” The Violate Man: Fantasies of Male/Male Sexual Violence since 1965 (upcoming book), Coda.
Matthew Leifheit, “LOVE 2018,” MATTE Magazine, February 2018.
Noemi Molitor, “Schaut Sich In Berlins Galerien Um,” taz. die tageszeitung, April 20, 2017. Kunst.
“Das Instabile - eine Schau in Berlin-Friedenau,” Der Tagesspiegel, March 18, 2017.
Sarah Moore, “Art Professor Feature,” The Continental, Spring 2016.
Lorenzo Pereira , “Group of Artists Comment on Consumerism at Rockelmann Gallery,” Widewalls, accessed: April 12, 2016. http://www.widewalls.ch/rockelmann-gallery-group-exhibition-clay-berlin/
Paul Mathieu, “The Industrial Esthetics: Purity and Perfection,” The Art of the Future: 14 essays on ceramics, access date: April 12, 2016. http://bit.ly/2hf2uwa
Leonie Huber “Berliner Kunstgriff,“ Gallerytalk.net (blog). March 22, 2016. http://www.gallerytalk.net/2016/03/27248.html
Matthew Leifheit, “LOVE 2016,” MATTE Magazine, January 2016.
Siochain Hughes, Thomas Hunter Projects Space (catalogue). March 2014. 154-155.
Korea Ceramics Foundation, International Ceramix Biennale 2011 International Competition (catalogue). December 2011. 161.
Greg Cook, “Review: The 2011 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition,” The Providence Phoenix, 5/24/11. http://providence.thephoenix.com/arts/121126-review-the-2011-risd-graduate-thesis-exhibition/
Inna Komarovsky, “Behind Sightings,” The All-Nighter (blog), April 14, 2011. http://all-nighter.com/
Beyond the Brickyard, image featured on catalogue cover & inside. January 2011.
Rachel Hallock, “Second Exposure,” The All-Nighter (blog), November 18, 2010. http://all-nighter.com/
Sarah Ganz, “Object-Based Learning,” RISD Museum of Art (lecture). November 9, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4j78ixyUoo
Alexander McCargar, “Cracked,” The Table Journal, January 2010.
Elisabeth Harrison, “G-Speak, Computers of Tomorrow,” WRNI: Rhode Island Public Radio, 11/17/09.
Laura Floyd, “FSU Ceramics Sent Abroad,” FSU Faculty, Staff, and Student News Bulletin. October 2008.
Adriana Grant, “Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em: Tube Socks Survive the Kiln,” Seattle Weekly. March 2008. http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-03-05/arts/rock-em-sock-em/
Publications as author
The Kaolin Mine Nudies, artist book, March 2016.
Disgusting Comfort: The New American Dream, graduate thesis, May 2011.
Collections
Kuhn Collection, Berlin, Germany
Korea Ceramic Foundation, Gyeonggi-do Province, Republic of Korea
The Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Private Collections, NY, NY, Los Angeles, CA & Stockholm, Sweden