The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum: Steve DiBenedetto: Evidence of Everything

Steve DiBenedetto – Evidence of Everything

Steve DiBenedetto: Evidence of Everything Evidence of Everything marks the most comprehensive exhibition of the work of Steve DiBenedetto to date. Bringing together thirty-six paintings and a selection of related materials made by the artist between 1997 and the present, the exhibition is not so much a retrospective as an introspective—a reflective look inside the thematically complex and often visually excessive work that has defined the artist’s career. As the title Evidence of Everything suggests, this exhibition not only presents an overview of DiBenedetto’s idiosyncratic cosmology, but also of the nature of his painting process: a highly intuitive activity where the canvas becomes a recording of a struggle to align medium with content.

The labels that might come to mind in looking at DiBenedetto’s work include Surrealism and Expressionism, and there are clearly links to these two movements, but lurking beneath the surface there is a deeper and more profound thread that connects the artist to history—past, present, and future—via what is frequently referred to as the visionary tradition. This continuum links a diverse artistic lineage, from Piranesi’s “imaginary prisons” that eerily prophesied a Kafkaesque future for architecture and technology; through William

Blake’s illustrated books and poetry that featured the artist’s wild, subjective reimagining of creation mythology; to Goya’s late “Black Paintings” that include dark and troubling references to war and witchcraft. This thread continues through the late nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries with the Symbolist movement, certain aspects of Surrealism, and even the more thoughtful practitioners of psychedelic art. But this tradition is not limited to the visual arts, with speculative and science fiction in literature being, at least since the late nineteenth century, the primary conduit in culture for the visionary, uncanny, prophetic, and apocalyptic. It is important to note that DiBenedetto’s work is not mimetic of instances of the visionary in literature; rather it is based in a shared mindset, an attitude that connects the artist with writers such as James Joyce, J. G. Ballard, Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, and William Gibson. Viewed in this light, DiBenedetto’s consistent antagonist, the octopus, is as much related to Jules Verne’s giant squid as Symbolist Odilon Redon’s human-faced spiders or Surrealist Max Ernst’s anthropomorphic birds.

Although the majority of DiBenedetto’s paintings contain recognizable imagery, abstraction, and particularly the stylistic tendencies of and

motivations behind Abstract Expressionism and its related European movements are consistently present. The paintings of artists such Asger Jorn and Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze), particularly relate to the temperament of DiBenedetto’s work. Wols’s approach to painting, which combined figurative elements with free abstraction, shares many parallels with that of DiBenedetto, including the frequent use of a central form that exists in shallow, painterly space, as well as a strange sense of the chimerical and delusory.1 In 1945, Barnett Newman, the American abstract painter, wrote a summary of what he believed to be the proper subject matter for contemporary painting:

Still from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Walt Disney’s 1954 film based on Jules Verne’s 1870 novel.

“The present painter is concerned not with his own feelings or with the mystery of his own personality, but with the penetration into the world mystery. His imagination is therefore attempting to dig into metaphysical secrets. To that extent his art is concerned with the sublime. It is a religious art which through symbols will catch the basic truth of life which is its sense of tragedy.” 2 Newman’s sentiment about the quest of the “present painter” could very well be used as a description of DiBenedetto’s work today, particularly when it comes to the idea of using symbols to get at a certain kind of truth. But going deeper, it is in Newman’s metaphysical sublime that we have perhaps the greatest correspondence with DiBenedetto’s painting. The idea of the sublime in art, which was originally based on the experience of grandeur that inspired both fear and wonder— particularly in nature—was fundamentally a nineteenth-century concept. (As early as 1886, Nietzsche declared the sublime to be “out of date.”3) In the past one hundred years, however, the natural sublime has been superseded by what might be called the technological sublime, which has been manifested in everything from nuclear weapons to the Internet. But both concepts of the sublime share one important characteristic: emotions engendered by overwhelming forces. In the nineteenth century it was the power of nature, in the present it is primarily the products of civilization itself. The symbolic conflicts that are being played out in DiBenedetto’s work are not only symptomatic of the emotions aroused by the uncertainty of our present world, but also serve as a distillation of current events. Many of his paintings function like Picasso’s Guernica, speaking of tragedy and turmoil in broad metaphorical terms, related to reality but not illustrative of it.

In DiBenedetto’s work there is clearly a connection between anxiety and transcendence. Take, for example, the artist’s consistent use of the symbol of

Giovanni Battista Piranesi,The Giant Wheel, 1761

Odilon Redon, Smiling Spider, 1881

Ascension, 1997. Collection of Kevin Bruk, Miami

the Ferris wheel. The circular movement of the wheel embodies notions of constant motion and cyclical return; but to the wheel’s passenger, the hypnotic spinning and dizzying height cause disorientation and feelings of alarm and apprehension. This disturbing state shocks the passenger into the present tense: one doesn’t think about life’s humdrum details when gyrating a hundred feet in the air. The same observations could be made of the artist’s early paintings of the interiors of Gothic cathedrals. The powerful experience of the vaulted spaces and gravitydefying construction of these buildings has the effect of stopping time and placing the visitor in an ahistorical state, and DiBenedetto was drawn to their depiction by this quality. Now, it’s one thing to be a passenger on a Ferris wheel or a visitor to a cathedral and experience these feelings, but another to undergo a similar disorientation in front of a painting. DiBenedetto’s solution to this problem is to create, with paint, visual analogies to these encounters that prompt a heightened state of awareness. He accomplishes this with distortion of form, restless and often labyrinthine brushwork, bizarre juxtaposition of imagery, and a color sense that seamlessly goes from turbid to spectral.

The image of the helicopter first made its appearance in DiBenedetto’s work in 1995, and in this case its use as a symbol was based on a specific influence: the writings of inventor and mystic Arthur M. Young, who is best known as the designer of the iconic Bell 47, the first helicopter to be granted a commercial license. A Bell 47 is enshrined in the design collection of The Museum of Modern Art, majestically hanging in the museum’s atrium as a testament to the unity of form and function. But Young, who became obsessed with designing a helicopter as early as the 1920s, was driven as much by the evolution of human consciousness as aeronautical innovation. As Young wrote in 1947, “What is the psychopter…The psychopter is the winged self. It is that which the helicopter usurped—and what the helicopter was finally revealed not to be. The psychopter is the will to be unchained from the laws of nature, and to venture into the unknown. We expect that when it returns it will carry a message.”4 Young was a proponent of meditation and yoga, and believed in precognition and the human aura, yet was a brilliant engineer, arguing that the almost 360-degree view from the Bell 47’s bubble cockpit had a practical as well as spiritual character. Embedded in Young’s writings are ideas that appealed to DiBenedetto’s evolving aesthetics, particularly the use of an outward form for interior purposes. Again in 1947, Young noted, “He [Bell flight mechanic Carl Camp] said, ‘I see it more and more. You are not interested in the helicopter.’ I said true, but I’ve found that

Arthur M. Young, Bell 47 Helicopter, c. 1946

philosophy in itself is a liquid and has to be contained in something. It can be poured in any shape of vessel…In my case this was the helicopter as worked out by the coming together of nature, the people, and myself.” 5 Similarly, DiBenedetto has used the image of the helicopter as a vessel, a leitmotif that can be charged with numerous roles: a gyrating, technological mandala; a frightening metal tornado; an ascending or descending angel; a spectral “death from above” (think of the role of the helicopter in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now); a heroic, rescuing aerial savior; the symbol of tragedy as portrayed in Black Hawk Down; or the all-seeing eye in the sky. In fact, all of the main images that appear repeatedly in DiBenedetto’s oeuvre, the helicopter, the wheel, the spiral, the octopus, and the edifice (from cathedral to glass office tower) are used in this manner, as guiding, myth-laden symbols that are both specific and mutable. The idea that a set of guiding symbols can give an artist’s work coherence is not new, as manifest in artists as diverse as Picasso, James Joyce, and Frida Kahlo.

As foreboding as DiBenedetto’s work can be, the dark side is offset by a sense of freedom and release in the artist’s approach to painting itself. Despite the recurring motifs, his painting is never formulaic, bucking recent trends towards conceptual and formal approaches to art making. The artist frequently works and reworks his paintings, with the revisions stretching into years. Take, for instance, THE AUTHORITIES DEMAND INDIFFERENCE REGARDING YOUR PARTICIPATION IN IGNORING THEM. Begun in 2013, the painting was exhibited in early 2015, only to return to the studio to be reworked before being included in this exhibition.

DiBenedetto rarely discards a problematic canvas, the potential always exists to glaze or scumble more paint on the surface and resolve the image, an approach that leads to some works having a physical presence that approaches the archeological. On the other hand, the artist’s small paintings, which tend towards being more abstract, frequently come to completion in just a few weeks.

Copter and Psychopter, 2005. Collection John and Sara Shlesinger, Atlanta

It is tempting to attach specific meanings to the recurrent symbols in the artist’s work, say by applying classic Jungian psychology or by approaching it via the path of comparative mythology as espoused by figures such as Joseph Campbell, but DiBenedetto rejects such analysis as being too limiting. If one were to look for connections from the world of psychology, DiBenedetto’s intellect is aligned with the more outré side of those who have investigated human consciousness, including Aldous Huxley, Terence McKenna, and Timothy Leary. The writing of McKenna, the ethnobotanist and self-described “psychonaut,” is particularly germane to DiBenedetto’s work, in that it promoted raw, unfiltered, and direct experience of consciousness over rational knowledge. This quote, taken from McKenna’s 1993 multimedia event Alien Dreamtime, could be a lyrical description of the events unfolding in one of the artist’s paintings: “You can feel it. You can feel it in your own dreams…You can feel that we’re approaching the cusp of a catastrophe, and that beyond that cusp we are unrecognizable to ourselves. The wave of novelty that has rolled unbroken since the birth of the universe has now focused and coalesced itself in our species. And if it seems unlikely to you that the world is about to transform itself,

then think of it this way: think of a pond, and think of how if the surface of the pond begins to boil— that’s the signal that some enormous protean form is about to break the surface of the pond and reveal itself. Human history is the boiling of the pond surface of ordinary biology. We are flesh which has been caught in the grip of some kind of an attractor that lies ahead of us in time, and that is sculpting us to its ends; speaking to us through psychedelics, through visions, through culture, technology, and consciousness.”6 If one chooses to look at DiBenedetto’s work in the light of the world beyond the merely visible, it is clear that he is functioning as a seer, not just a reporter of our chaotic and troubling times. His role is to deliver pure, unadulterated information from the depths of both the conscious and subconscious mind, not to explain or compartmentalize it. As Odilon Redon wrote in his journal, “My drawings inspire and do not define themselves. They resolve nothing. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous world of the indeterminate.”7 Music, the most purely abstract and experiential form of art, is germane to any conversation about DiBenedetto’s work, yet has rarely been commented upon. The artist, an accomplished drummer, has played since the age of ten and

performs professionally, currently serving as the percussionist for the New York-based rock trio Bob Carol Ted. Although he plays primarily in the genre of psychedelic rock, DiBenedetto’s style leans towards the more experimental and improvisational, with a key influence being the jazz drummer Tony Williams, who played with figures such as Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, and John McLaughlin. The hypnotic, consciousness-altering power of rhythm is well known, and DiBenedetto’s life “in the groove” is the flip side of his approach to visual art, reflecting a broader pursuit of the transcendental.

It is at this point in the conversation—perhaps surprisingly—that the octopus becomes strangely relevant. Although human (or human-like) figures appear occasionally in the artist’s work, the primary figure in DiBenedetto’s painted cosmology has been the cephalopod. It appears in many guises, from an active, grappling combatant to a deflated, semi-abstract coil of paint. It is tempting to pose the octopus as DiBenedetto’s alter ego, an alternately controlling and defeated monster from the artist’s id, but that rationalization is too simple. Given the facts of the artist’s influences (and the nature of cephalopods themselves), it is not out of the question to suggest that the octopus represents a radically different means of perception, and by extension a metaphor for DiBenedetto’s broad, psychogenic approach to art making.

The modern drummer, unlike other musicians, is like a dancer, with the whole body involved in manipulation of the surrounding drum kit.

Drummers train themselves to repeat the same physical patterns over and over, with their timekeeping, particularly when it comes to playing complex polyrhythms, becoming highly subconscious. Drumming is haptic: of or relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects via proprioception. Proprioception is the ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium; it is processed not in the cerebral cortex, but in lower, more primitive areas of the brain. The octopus has a decentralized nervous system, with its tentacles being able to operate either independently of each other or in concert when necessary. For this reason, it is considered the most alien intelligent life form, and some—including Terence McKenna—have suggested that its nervous system is analogous to the Internet as well as being a model for human consciousness in the future. The octopus, metaphorically, can also be looked at as perhaps the ultimate drummer, with the ability to manipulate the physical world independently in eight different ways, or—and this is going out on a limb!—the ultimate painter, controlling every corner of the picture plane with its radical, unworldly intelligence. In DiBenedetto’s world

Cephlaglyph, 2010. Collection of Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy

We Blew It, 2015. Collection of Roger E. Kass

there ultimately isn’t much of a difference in moving from the drum skin, stretched on its metal frame, to the canvas, stretched on its wooden frame: both are arenas for improvisation that potentially lead to expansive experiences.

In 2012, DiBenedetto was invited to participate in a group exhibition based on the theme of The Beatles. The invitation launched a new series of hypnotic colored-pencil drawings, which, surprisingly, were primarily text-based. The artist’s prior use of stylized architectural and geometric imagery was easily morphed into letters, symbols, and numerals, with results resembling 1960s psychedelic poster art. The chosen texts, which are frequently so transformed as to be almost unreadable, vary from the lyrical (NOW AND THEN EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE) to the humorous (HIPPY THOUGHTS) to phrases that reflect the paranoid, bad-trip side of the sixties (EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL). The architectural form of the letters brings to mind the minimal sculpture of artists such as Tony Smith, Robert Smithson, and Richard Artschwager, as well as the geometric logos of rock bands such as the Dead Kennedys and Def Leppard.

The optically hyperactive layering of this type of graphic information creates a visual dissonance that speaks of DiBenedetto’s fascination with the

transformative that exists in popular culture, as well as in subject matter that transcends historical bounds. These works on paper became a springboard for the artist to incorporate text into his painting practice, including the work INDICATIONS ARE SUCH THAT COMPLIANCE NEGATES INCLUSION, which, despite its title, is included in this exhibition. These paintings with text emphasize the Orwellian side of DiBenedetto’s vision, and, like the snake eating its own tail, bring the viewer into a feedback loop—in this case dystopian—without beginning or end.

One of the most recent works on view is the painting I, Robot, completed early in 2015. Its title references the seminal 1950 novel of the same name by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. The novel, which delineated a future history of artificial intelligence and the rules that govern its moral behavior, has influenced successive generations of writers and filmmakers. DiBenedetto’s painting depicts a figure of sorts: a body, standing upright with appendages, and what could pass as a head.

The figure, however, is not mechanical, nor is it biological; it is a creature cast out of paint itself.

One is reminded more of a golem, the mythical, anthropomorphic figure magically created from inanimate matter that inhabits Jewish folklore, than

I, Robot, 2015. Collection of Molly and William Rand, New York

a robot. The golem myth is credited with informing numerous works of fiction, including Goethe’s poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (later animated by Walt Disney in his film Fantasia), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and James Cameron’s Terminator.

The figure’s outward form in DiBenedetto’s painting has coalesced out of a surrounding chaos that is visible through brushy layers of glaze, while its interior is seething with every conceivable type of paint application, from the deliberate to the contingent. I, Robot seems to be suggesting that paint has an innate intelligence and, by using the artist as a medium, it is capable of self-organization.

DiBenedetto, through his process, has become a channel for both psychic and physical forces: a hand holding the pointer on a Ouija board, tracing out messages from a future that we have created, but from which, chillingly, we might be absent.

Richard Klein, exhibitions director

1.

Wols (1913–1951) who briefly studied anthropology, began his career in the 1930s as a photographer, but completely turned his attention to painting after World War II. His hallucinatory paintings, most of which are small scale, reflect the influences of both the Chinese Daoist poet Laozi and Existentialism.

2.

Barnett Newman, “The Plasmic Image” (1943–1945), as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), p. 125.

3.

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Preface,” The Gay Science: With A Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. and ed. Walter Kaufman (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 4.

4.

Arthur M. Young, The Bell Notes: A Journey from Physics to Metaphysics (Mill Valley, CA: Robert Briggs Associates, 1979), p. 106.

5.

Young, p. 161.

6.

From Alien Dreamtime, written by Terence McKenna, produced and directed by Ken Adams (Austin, TX: Magic Carpet Media, 2003); edited recording, released on DVD, of multimedia event presented at the Transmission Theater, San Francisco, February 26, 27, 1993.

7.

Odilon Redon, A Soi-même: Journal 1867–1915 (Paris: Librairie José Corti, 1961), p. 26.

Steve DiBenedetto was born in 1958 in Bronx, New York; he lives and works in New York City.

Works in the Exhibition All dimensions h x w x d in inches

Ascension, 1997 Oil on canvas 120 x 72 Collection of Kevin Bruk, Miami

Cryptopsy, 2000–01 Oil on canvas 48 x 60

Edge Dwelling, 2008 Oil on canvas 96 x 74 ½

Quarry, 2010 Oil on canvas 78 x 116

Collection of A. G. Rosen

Red & Green Abstraction, 1997–98 Oil on canvas 15 5/8 x 19 ½

Metacopter, 2003 Oil on linen 48 x 60 Collection of Kevin Bruk, Miami

Knot Building, 2008 Oil on canvas 24 x 20

We Blew It, 2010 Oil on canvas 60 x 48

Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York

Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York

Double Reflection, 2008–09 Oil on linen 20 x 16 Collection of A. G. Rosen

4$, 2012 Colored pencil on paper 17 x 14 Private collection

Sorcerer (for MD), 1997–98 Oil on canvas 72 x 72 Collection of A. G. Rosen Divest, 1998 Oil on canvas 73 x 91 Collection of Jeff Bailey and John Lillis Envelope, 1999–2002 Oil on Canvas 18 x 24 Collection of John and Sara Shlesinger, Atlanta The Unknown, 1999–2002 Oil on canvas 18 x 24 Collection of Kevin Bruk, Miami Disappearance, 1999–2003 Oil on canvas 20 x 16

Captured Shadow, 2005 Oil on linen 48 x 60 Hall Collection Copter and Psychopter, 2005 Oil on canvas 48 x 60 Collection of John and Sara Shlesinger, Atlanta Torment of the Metals, 2005 Oil, alkyd, and oil stick on linen 69 ¼ x 90 1/8 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee 2005.178 Antiornament, 2008 Oil on canvas 18 x 24

Feedback, 2009 Oil on canvas 60 x 48 Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York Cephlaglyph, 2010 Oil on canvas 70 x 96 Collection of Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy Five Elements, 2010 Oil on canvas 48 x 60 Collection of Wassim Rasamny, New York

HIPPY THOUGHTS, 2012 Colored pencil on paper 17 x 14 Courtesy of the artist and Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, Massachusetts IF IT COULD HAPPEN ONCE IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN 2, 2012 Colored pencil on paper 17 x 14 Collection of Geoffrey Young, Great Barrington, Massachusetts

WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, 2012 Colored pencil on paper 17 x 14 Courtesy of the artist and Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, Massachusetts YOU MUST RELAX, 2012 Colored pencil on paper 17 x 14 Collection of Alexi and Erika Belsey Worth Antitechture, 2013–2014 Oil on linen 36 x 24 Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York Indications Are Such That Compliance Negates Inclusion, 2013–14 Oil on linen 77 x 80 Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York Eclipse, 2014 Oil on canvas 65 x 60 Courtesy of the artist and David Nolan Gallery, New York

MONEY/SHOT, 2014 Colored pencil on paper 17 x 14 Courtesy of the artist and Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, Massachusetts The Authorities Demand Indifference Regarding Your Participation in Ignoring Them, 2014 Oil on linen 65 x 153 Courtesy of the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York Offers of Refusal, 2014–15 Oil on linen 24 x 18 Courtesy of Derek Eller Gallery, New York Antithesis, 2015 Oil on canvas 21 x 18

Circumstances Suggest Inverse Relationships Between Information and Consensus, 2015 Oil on canvas 24 x 21 Cult of One, 2015 Oil on canvas 22 x 19 Courtesy of the artist I, Robot, 2015 Oil on linen 60 x 48 Collection of Molly and William Rand, New York Neon Bog, 2015 Oil on canvas 21 x 17 Spock’s Doubt, 2015 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 Courtesy of the artist

Benefits of the Doubt, 2015 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 Calibration of Indifference, 2015 Oil on canvas 23 x 19

We Blew It, 2015 Oil on linen 20 x 16 Collection of Roger E. Kass

Steve DiBenedetto in collaboration with Dave Rick and Jon Rick VTOL, 2015 Four channel sound installation in the Museum’s rear stairwell; 30:00 minutes Steve DiBenedetto: percussion; Dave Rick: climate change guitar; Jon Rick: effects and audio production Courtesy of the artists The exhibition includes a display case containing ephemera from the artist’s studio. It features small works on paper, prints, photographs, books, record jackets, and other materials that relate to DiBenedetto’s practice.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Founded by Larry Aldrich in 1964, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is dedicated to fostering the work of innovative artists whose ideas and interpretations of the world around us serve as a platform to encourage creative thinking. It is the only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art, and throughout its fifty-year history has engaged its community with thoughtprovoking exhibitions and education programs.

Board of Trustees Eric G. Diefenbach, Chairman; Linda M. Dugan, Vice-Chairman; William Burback, Treasurer/ Secretary; Diana Bowes; Chris Doyle; Annabelle K. Garrett; Georganne Aldrich Heller, Honorary Trustee; Michael Joo; Neil Marcus; Kathleen O’Grady; Lori L. Ordover; Martin Sosnoff, Trustee Emeritus; John Tremaine

Steve DiBenedetto: Evidence of Everything Curated by Richard Klein November, 15, 2015, through April 3, 2016 The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

The Aldrich, in addition to significant support from its Board of Trustees, receives contributions from many dedicated friends and patrons. Major funding for Museum programs and operations has been provided by the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation; the Leir Charitable Foundations; The Goldstone Family Foundation; the Anne S. Richardson Fund; and Fairfield Fine Art.

Alyson Baker, Executive Director Larry Aldrich (1906–2001), Founder

Cover Steve DiBenedetto, Captured Shadow, 2005 Hall Collection

258 Main Street Ridgefield, CT 06877 203.438.4519 aldrichart.org

Generous support for Steve DiBenedetto: Evidence of Everything is provided by Patrons Circle contributors David Nolan Gallery, Alvin Hall, Melvin Heller, Sara and John Shlesinger, Daniel and Brooke Neidich, and Anna and Martin Rabinowitz.