Ben Shaffer’s Ben Deroy (2007) is part performance, part self-portrait, and part spiritual vision. Often the artist works with the motifs of the counterculture and contemporary non-religious spiritualism. The figure hangs suspended—seemingly ascending—animation. The figure looks like some kind of countercultural superman empowered by myriad alternative experiences, as worthy of myth as the heralded Laocoön.
Ben Shaffer’s works are dynamic installations that integrate sculpture, painting, and performance. His complex pieces often require direct interaction from viewers, eschewing simple subject-object relationships in favor of relational negotiations. Through his makeshift neo- psychedelia, Shaffer explores the legacy of counter-cultural imagery, specifically its fragile utopic horizons and ever-receding promises of enlightenment and transcendence. Shaffer lives and works in Los Angeles, and received his MFA from Claremont University in Southern California.
Federico Herrero’s energetic paintings reflect his experiences on the streets of his native San José, Costa Rica, and in the surrounding tropical landscape...
Reeder’s works often start with language—and his Pasta Paintings are no different...
Itch explores the relationship between technology and daily human experience with a motorized arm that extends from within the gallery’s wall, moving up and down while holding a projector that shows a desperately scratching pair of hands....
Casa de la cabeza (2011) is a drawing of the words of the title, which translate literally into English as “house of the head.” Ortiz uses this humorous phrase to engage the idea of living in your head....
In this work, a woman sits on a couch with her shirt pulled up to expose her pierced nipples, which are connected by a chain...
Ongoing Time Stabbed with a Dagger was Farmer’s first kinetic sculpture that added a cinematic character to an “ever-reconfiguring play presented in real time.” The assembly of various objects and props on top of a large platform constitutes not only a work, but, to a certain extent, a show in itself...
Natasha Wheat’s Kerosene Triptych (2011) is composed of three images, one each from the digital files of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Field Museum tropical research archive...
Untitled (Breathless) presents a folded newspaper article on Jean-Luc Godard’s À Bout de Souffle (Breathless)...
Bowers’ Radical Hospitality (2015) is a sculptural contradiction: its red and blue neon letters proclaim the words of the title, signaling openness and generosity, while the barbed wires that encircle the words give another message entirely...
Michigan Central Station is part of a larger photographic series, Detroit Photos , which includes images of houses, theaters, stadiums, offices, and other municipal structures...
This untitled work from 2012 is a print originally made as part of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art’s artist limited edition series...
Wheat’s work is built on a strong conceptual framework that weaves together commentary on social and political issues and the radical potential for change...
Concerned with the early history of Singapore, Zai Kuning spent many years living with and researching the history of the Riau peoples who were the first inhabitants of Singapore...
Like many of Opie’s works, Mike and Sky presents female masculinity to defy a binary understanding of gender...
The Last Post was inspired by Sikander’s ongoing interest in the colonial history of the sub-continent and the British opium trade with China...