Artist: Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested
Exhibition title: You Be You
Venue: Greenspon, New York, US
Date: March 8 – May 5, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Greenspon, New York
Greenspon is pleased to announce You Be You, Berlin-based artist Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. On view are new bodies of work which engage with photography, sculpture and inventive hybrids through these two mediums. Sehested’s background in analogue photography and printing techniques lends her use of the medium a distinctive materiality. Over the last decade this sensibility has been channeled into the production of figurative sculptures. In You Be You, the differing modes of photographic and sculptural presentation interact in complex ways to contend with the proposition embedded in the exhibition’s title.
The gallery space is dominated by an enlarged digital print of a 1980’s Danish advertisement. The image shows three children engrossed in prescribed craft activities, supervised by their father. But it is the maternal figure in the background, reviewing correspondences, who attracts our attention. Her gestures convey the existence of an interior world. The hand touching the back of her neck and her slightly tilted head are an assertion of her individuality against the backdrop of family. This attentiveness to gesture is echoed in the five figurative sculptures, which inhabit the gallery space. Articulated body parts are rendered in a variety of sculptural techniques and materials that suggest the possibility of reconfiguration. Some of the materials mimic what they represent: pinkish wax over starched cotton and latex sheets suggest skin; hair growing inside a clear, cast resin head recalls the literalness of a child’s imagination.
A photograph of a grouping of the sculptural figures printed directly onto high density upholstery foam plays out the exhibition’s tautological investigation. The difference between representation and sculptural object collapses on this spongy, polymorphous surface. Six customized print-on-demand mugs, of the kind gifted to family members, display an image of one of the figurative sculptures in the show. The absurdity of attempting to individuate and personify these otherwise seemingly anonymous sculptures is a deft, comic touch.
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, You Be You, 2018, exhibition view, Greenspon, New York
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, You Be You, 2018, exhibition view, Greenspon, New York
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, You Be You, 2018, exhibition view, Greenspon, New York
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, You Be You, 2018, exhibition view, Greenspon, New York
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, You Be You, 2018, exhibition view, Greenspon, New York
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, UV print on paper, metal bar, Dimensions variable
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled (Y B Y), 2018, UV print on polyurethane foam, 16 1/2 x 12 5/8 x 3/4 inches (41.9 x 32.1 x 1.9 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, Wax, synthetic hair, polyurethane foam, cotton thread 3 x 5 x 18 inches (7.6 x 12.7 x 45.7 cm); Untitled, 2018, Wax, resin, color pigment, Dimensions variable, each hand: 3 1/2 x 3 x 2 inches (8.9 x 7.6 x 5.1 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, Wax, synthetic hair, polyurethane foam, cotton thread 3 x 5 x 18 inches (7.6 x 12.7 x 45.7 cm); Untitled, 2018, Wax, resin, color pigment, Dimensions variable, each hand: 3 1/2 x 3 x 2 inches (8.9 x 7.6 x 5.1 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, Fuji Instant Color Print, 3 3/8 x 4 1/4 inches (8.5 x 10.8 cm), Framed: 11 1/2 x 13 1/4 x 1 3/8 inches (29 x 33.5 x 3.5 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, Latex, wax, starched cotton, resin, fiberglass, color pigment, plaster, metal wire, Ikea ‘Tobias’ chair 46 x 22 x 27 inches (116.8 x 55.9 x 68.6 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, wax, starched cotton, resin, fiberglass, color pigment, metal wire, synthetic hair, plaster, polyurethane foam, Ikea ‘Tobias’ chair 46 x 21 x 31 inches (116.8 x 53.3 x 78.7 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, Latex, wax, starched cotton, resin, fiberglass, color pigment, plaster, metal wire, synthetic hair, Ikea ‘Tobias’ chair 44 x 21 x 32 inches (111.8 x 53.3 x 81.3 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, UV print on polyurethane foam, 16 1/2 x 12 5/8 x 3/4 inches (41.9 x 32.1 x 1.9 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2014, Fuji Instant Color Print, 3 3/8 x 4 1/4 inches (8.5 x 10.8 cm), Framed: Dimensions:111/2×131/411 x1/2 3/8x13inches1/4x 1(293/8x inches33.5x 3(29.5 cm)x33.5 x 3.5 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2017, Fuji Instant Color Print, 3 3/8 x 4 1/4 inches (8.5 x 10.8 cm), Framed: 11 1/2 x 13 1/4 x 1 3/8 inches (29 x 33.5 x 3.5 cm)
Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Untitled, 2018, 6 ceramic mugs with digital print, Dimensions variable, each much 3.2 x 3 Ø inches (8.1 x 7.6 Ø cm)
