Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts

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H E AT H E R B E N N E T T Photos of Gifts

bruno david gallery

HEATHER BENNETT Photos of Gifts

October 14 - November 11, 2017 Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63105, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Owner/Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts” at Bruno David Gallery.

Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Ruoyi Gan and Jin Xia Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Heather Bennett and Bruno David Gallery Installation Photographs by Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Tux Ruffles for Coreos, (detail) 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre Edition of 3 +1 AP 42 x 63 inches (106.7 x 160 cm) First Edition Copyright © 2017 Bruno David Gallery All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery

CONTENTS

TONGUE-IN-CHEEK FETISHISM, TIED UP WITH A PRETTY BOW

BY EILEEN G’SELL ON PHOTOS OF GIFTS

BY HEATHER BENNETT AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

TONGUE-IN-CHEEK FETISHISM, TIED UP WITH A PRETTY BOW

BY EILEEN G’SELL

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“Why is female vulnerability still only acceptable when it’s neuroticized and personal; when it feeds back on itself? Why do people still not get it when we handle vulnerability like philosophy, at some remove?” ~ Chris Kraus Best known for her photographic interventions into the narrative bandwidth of female subjectivity, performing visually à la Hannah Wilke or Cindy Sherman, artist Heather Bennett has long plumbed the depths of perceptional phenomenology—the object looked at slyly looking, the subject desiring to be desired.

That such simultaneity defines the vagaries of daily life is hardly new; nor is the idea that women might be particularly well schooled—via the open-admission reality of sexism—to navigate these dualities in creative ways. In Bennett’s work, this creativity is anchored by a feminist sensibility laced with wry humor. It is serious but not self-serious, it means without bluntly moralizing.

In her latest series Photos of Gifts, Bennett removes herself as a visible player in order to toy with questions of frivolity, adornment, and the rituals of consumption. Each expansive print hints at the artist’s presence in depicting presents she has hand-wrapped in magazine ads. Titled diaristically, according to the item wrapped and its lucky recipient—a Mary Gaitskill book for “JLM,” a pair of tuxedo ruffles for “Coreos”—the collection reads as both irreverent and deeply personal, each present staged as fleeting surface pleasure rendered permanent on fiber rag paper.

And that’s where shit gets weird (if delightfully so). Through selective focus and a distorted scale between gift and domestic backdrop, visual planes collide and coalesce, upending the conventions of high-end fashion spreads to expose how easily model and consumer good can be instantly fetishized. Are we gazing at a real-life green-eyed woman, her dark mouth lacquered behind an emerald sash? Or at her flattened visage against a box? And—perhaps most troublingly—does the

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difference even make a difference in how we respond? Bennett’s gifts may be (literally) tied up with a pretty bow, but her feminist inclinations are anything but.

“I’m coming at feminism from a different angle here than in my earlier projects,” she explains. “It’s a bit more subtle—about the objecthood of the photograph in an ironic sense. Through illusion, I’m bringing promises of possible a narrative—then purposefully breaking them.”

In such deception lies the humor, a droll distraction from what is at stake that yet forces one to reckon with it. Take The Hey Baby Book for Catalina O. (2015), in which the gift box appears upon a baby blue leather skirt—mirroring the red ones the models wear in the spread festooning the foreground. From a distance, the leather creases resemble storm clouds looming above the cumulus in the fashion fantasy. As the blonde duo aloofly ponders the perfect sky above them, the viewer gets a glimpse of something darker, a riposte to The Hey Baby Book for Catalina O. bland escapism. “Humor is such a powerful too, but one you have to wield very carefully,” says Bennett. “For me, it’s always there, even though I’d never call my work laugh-out-loud funny. Especially navigating women’s images and media, humor informs how we deal with it on a daily basis.”

Gesturing to the long aesthetic history of fragmenting the female body—a hallmark both of contemporary pornography and the Elizabethan blazon—several works zoom in a tiny sliver of a gift’s surface to sharply focus on select sections of a model’s form. In The Hey Baby Book for Holly (2016), a mini-skirted woman is cut off mid-hips; as her hands frame her nether regions, a flower dangles provocatively in the space between her thighs, mirroring the floral fabric print directly above. It feels

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all so literal so as to be risible. As if to embellish that effect, a delicate red gift tie twists over the models’ hands, reminiscent of bondage, while a thick red sash slashes below her knees.

Bennett is at once poking fun at fetishism while calling attention to the implicit violence of the reductive male gaze. When one’s value is strictly metonymic, what power can she access?

Capote for JLM (2015) takes that question into darker territory, presenting a black-and-white spread of a model lying on The Hey Baby Book for Holly what appears to be a leaf-strewn grass. Her head bent back and body limp, the only thing distinguishing this from a crime scene is the model’s glossy lower lip and wavy hair—each catching the light just so. Bennett’s signature ribbon—again a bright red—cuts diagonally across the plane like sumptuous police tape, the lower one crossing over the model’s nose and eyes like a blindfold. Considering Truman Capote’s iconic In Cold Blood, about the 1959 murders of four members of the Herbert Clutter family, this image takes on a cinematic quality less humorous than haunting.

Capote for JLM

Compared to Bennett’s elaborate filmic narrative projects — many which boast production credits of their own—Photos of Gifts follows a simpler, more spontaneous process. “I’m taking something that seems frivolous and feminine and exploding it and making it something new,” says the artist of her penchant for gift-wrapping. Shot intuitively at her home once a gift is ready and ribboned, each cumulatively chronicles a life of giving while probing gendered cultural assumptions.

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Further wrapping the frames to match the jewel tones of each image, Bennett conflates the performance of femininity with the pretext of art itself. “I’m very much a person who loves contradiction,” she shares. “My primping of the art object—making this overtly beautiful object that you desire—is a method of being critical of that even though the objects are that.”

Propped up against cushions, textiles, or articles of clothing partially or wholly obscured, many gifts are granted a dreamy, if vaguely sinister, boudoir quality. A reproduction of an 18th century portrait of Lady Peel stares out at us from the left half of Ace for JLM (2015), its scarlet backdrop fading into what appears to be folds of matching curtain enveloping the right-hand side. In BFG for Marc Et-al (2016), a reddish-peach swatch at first resembles a sepia smudge or blood stain, but up close becomes the upper arm of a woman swathed in frilly cream chiffon. Her head cut off by the upper edge of the gift box, the model fades into the background’s shaggy white fringe. Death by throw pillow?

A bridal bust gone bust? The joke, it seems, isn’t only on us.

“Isn’t the greatest freedom in the world the freedom to be wrong?” Chris Kraus asked in her cult-classic, newly popular novel I Love Dick. Bennett’s take on feminism, fetishism, and the crankbait of beauty enthralls in part because she’s willing to take that risk—the lines between sincerity and parody as blurry as a model’s airbrushed brow, and the stakes as timely—and intimate—as a gift worth wrapping and giving way.

Ace for JLM

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Eileen G’Sell is a Saint Louis-based writer. She received an MA from the University of Rochester and an MFA in creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis. Her cultural criticism, essays, and poetry can be found in Salon, VICE, the Boston Review, Hyperallergic, DAME, and DIAGRAM among others; and she was awarded the 2013 American Literary Review prize for poetry. Her chapbooks are available from Dancing Girl and BOAAT Press, and her debut poetry collection Life After Rugby is available from Gold Wake Press (2017). She currently teaches composition and film at Washington University in St. Louis, and creative writing for the Prison Education Project at Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. A version of this essay appeared in Hyperallergic in October 2017. This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

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ON PHOTOS OF GIFTS

BY HEATHER BENNETT

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Photographic images have traditionally depicted space, revealing people and objects; they are the stuff of illusion. They are also things. At the intersection of these identities is a kind of gooey vacillation as we look at and through a photographic image in contemporary culture. My current body of work plays with this vacillation ad nauseam. The work seems to depict exactly what the title, Photos of Gifts, describes; however, objects are often wrapped with magazine images complicating illusionistic space, as well as, obscuring object identities. Photographs as objects become part of the image construction, acting as things and simultaneously describing them. Space is represented only to be flattened and broken. Scenes are constructed and composed as a drawing or painting and completed with clues to their spatial falsity. A seemingly fictitious space is created that belies and pronounces the archaic assumptive truth telling aspect of the photograph. Depth and flatness become one tactic, breaking in upon one another promiscuously. These images don’t so much capture a past but hint at a transition. They are portraits of an object in a transient state, a brief state as the gift object, pampered and prepared, veiled and decorated, ready to be torn open and revealed.

The ephemerality of the gift object, and of the photographic moment, in general, are collapsed and conflated with a wink.

The seemingly incongruous titles of the images reference the actual object and its intended recipient, alluding to a performative aspect which is heightened by the representation of an object prepared for a brief but secretive moment which playfully hides identity—a blunt reference to the lie of the photograph. Barthes’ ‘that has been’ moment which can never be again is treated with intention and without regret, without loss. The presence of the present implies duration which is essential to, and of course, contradictory to, ephemerality. Loss is horse-traded for simultaneity and contradiction.

The arguable objecthood of the photograph is conflated in these works with the history of the woman as object, so intricately outlined by her historic representation in the photographic/ film medium.

Using pages of contemporary fashion magazines as wrapping paper becomes slightly facetious in the

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overtness of the action. Women playing objects for advertisement are transformed to the focused subjects of my images, only to then be literally flattened, inextricable from the object portrait, as they are wrapped around that object and tied with a bow. Bows often turn into fetishistic metaphors, injecting a sarcasm which reflects the exaggerated humor women often must employ in the everyday to endure their physical realities, corporeal consequences. I am ‘packaging’ these women, literally, reflecting on my own self-objectification and making fun of its pervasiveness within my language even as I call it out and attempt to excise it. The subject/ object balance gets a sea-sickening treatment.

The final, framed presentation continues the act—color-coded matching frames, background walls engulfed in painted color—as a self-aware, over the top metaphor hinting at the wrapping and primping which is so integral to the art object, as well as, the expectations of female performance.

These works are in themselves an unashamed commodity and yet also an instigator, asking questions of the audience who desires them. Boldly and conspicuously, my images question their own identity, in earnest, though shrouded in irony. I believe earnestness can be at the heart of the critical, the object can reveal the subject, beauty can speak with humor—reason with emotion, care with knowing. The classical dialectic is anything but binary, always containing and even cradling its conflicting, seeming opposite.

Recently, I was accused of making “romantic” work and I wondered at the assumptions which led to that description being hurled as an insult. I mean, Romanticism!, characterized by the primacy of the individual; a focus on subjectivity through a wild, free and emotive expression. Yes! Not relegated to the assumed vacuity of beauty, romanticism implies pleasure and immersion alongside an aesthetic complicated with sublimity. I wanted to celebrate the (hopeful) aptness of the application of this knotted dichotomy to my work while simultaneously acknowledging the term was being used, in this instance, as a simple, pop-cultural description. Much like how one might characterize work

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under reductive terms such as ‘chick lit’ and ‘chick flick’, pointedly honing in exactly on the implied contrast to the rational. My work masquerades as a participant in this type of space but all the while asks: in what space is there a mandate to be critical, the opportunity to be complicated and a right to be heard.

A lovely package, ribbons and bows, decoration, frivolity, all, historically, have been somewhat the province of the feminine. My previous bodies of work have attempted to realign the assumptive role of the female in familiar narratives, asking the audience to take another look at her as a subject, one that is seen. Coaxing her out of her invisibility within objecthood, disrupts the simplicity and exclusivity of the dominant narrative. Rather than attempting to wedge itself into this hegemonic story and ask for reinterpretation, Photos of Gifts remains in a relegated space, off to the side. The small act of wrapping a gift becomes a potent metaphor, exploding within its supposedly quiet, often assumed to be feminine space, attempting a lyrical yet borderline didactic strength.

The act of giving, of taking care is often denigrated as background (and just as often identified with a tinge of the feminine), reflecting the necessity but inconspicuousness of the care-giver. The act of care here denies its demotion. While the specificity of the Photos of Gifts titles gesture to a new destination, highlighting the coming transition and its brevity, they are also diaristic, ousting the recipient and emphasizing the essential purpose of the object as a gift. A gift intended to be given.

The object is relinquished, bathed in an elaborate ritual and transferred with devotion to someone for whom it was chosen. Devotion, which can mimic that romantic thing called love. Relegation becomes dedication and cloyingness yields to what is crucial, bringing care in close and surprising contact to the critical.

This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

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AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID

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I am pleased to present a new exhibition of photographs titled “Photos of Gifts” by Heather Bennett at the Bruno David Gallery. This is her fourth exhibition with the gallery.

Heather Bennett earned a BA in political science and a BFA in printmaking at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and received an MFA in painting at Hunter College, New York. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States.

She is the recipient of a Regional Arts Commission Artist Support Grant (2017); The Somerville Art Prize, New York (2002); William Graff Travel Abroad Scholarship, Hunter College, MFA (2000), and Marsha Hertzman Blasingame Award for Printmaking (1994). She was chosen to attend the inaugural international artist residency at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in the summer of 2017. Several catalogs of Heather Bennett’s work have been published to date including: Sidetrack: (Snapshots, Outtakes and Polaroids 2001-2008), a 240-page catalog covering eight years of work with essays by Jenni Sorkin and William Stover; Four Stories, published in 2015 by Bruno David Gallery with essays by Jen Logan Meyer and Heather Bennett. Bennett self-published a work in the form of text entitled, Crush, from 2015 and as well, a 2016 book documenting a project from 2001 called, The Hey Baby Book (From April to August in Chronological Order) which is carried by Printed Matter, Inc. in New York City.

She has written catalog essays for artists Trine Lise Nedreaas, Lisa Roy Sachs and written reviews for various publications including: Flash Art, 02 Magazine (Paris) and Gallery Bill (NYC), among others. Bennett’s work has been the subject of numerous reviews and art publications, such as Artnet, Art Review Magazine, Art Press, ArtPapers, The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, and Hyperallergic. Currently, Bennett is a full- time lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis, MO where she joined the faculty as the Louis D. Beaumont Visiting Artist Fellow in 2013. She currently works in St. Louis, MO and Brooklyn, NY. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Eileen G’Sell for her thoughtful essay and Heather Bennett for her text. I am deeply grateful to Ruoyi Gan and Jin Xia, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Cleo Azariadis, Christina Lu, Haleigh Givens, Peter Finley, Jin Xia, Viola Bordon and Thomas Fruhauf.

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CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

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Ace for JLM, 2015 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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The Hey Baby Book for Holly, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Dirty Harry T-Shirt for PO, 2014 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 63 Ă— 42 inches (160 Ă— 106.7 cm)

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BFG for Marc Et-al, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 63 Ă— 42 inches (160 Ă— 106.7 cm)

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Capote for JLM, 2015 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 63 Ă— 42 inches (160 Ă— 106.7 cm)

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The Stuffed Owl (An Anthology of Bad Verse) for Stephanie, 2015 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 63 Ă— 42 inches (160 Ă— 106.7 cm)

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Brecht for Adam, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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A Well Read Cat for Mom, 2015 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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The Hey Baby Book for Catalina O., 2015 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Blueprint Kit for Lilly, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Sassy Blue Ref Dress for Sheri, 2017 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Watercolor Journal for Lilly, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Silk Shirt for JLM, 2017 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Cards Jersey for Coreos, 2017 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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My Little Lumpen Novelita for JLM, 2018 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Fancy Pants for Gail, 2018 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Silver Ring for Gaily, 2017 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Tokyo Milk from Eileen, 2018 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 63 x 42 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Sidetrack Catalog for Cole, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Patron for Stan, 2015 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Tux Ruffles for Coreos, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Somebody with a Little Hammer for JLM, 2017 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Watercolors for PO, 2018 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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The Loved One for JLM, 2016 archival pigment on platine fibre rag paper edition of 3 42 Ă— 63 inches (106.7 Ă— 160 cm)

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Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts (installation view)

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Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts (installation view)

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Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts (installation view)

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Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts (installation view)

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Heather Bennett Education Hunter College, New York City, NY

Master of Fine Arts, Painting, 2001 Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Printmaking, fine art scholarship

Bachelor of Arts, Political Science, academic scholarship

Graduated with honors, both degrees, 1994

Solo Exhibitions 2017 2015 2014

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2008 2006 2005

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Photos of Gifts, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, October (catalog) Four Stories, Bruno David Projects, St. Louis, MO, March (catalog) Four Stories, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY, March Rivington, media room, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, March Sidetrack (Snapshots, Outtakes, Polaroids 2001-2008), Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, NYC, September The Empire Trilogy, media room, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, November The Empire Trilogy, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY, November Hanna Berman by Heather Bennett, Eva Hober Gallery, Paris, France, November The Uncovered Works of Hanna Berman, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY, Nov.-Dec. New Drawings by Heather Bennett, project room, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY, October Untitled, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO, July- August Untitled, Luxe Gallery at 57th St., New York, NY, January- February Love Letters, Forest Park College, St. Louis, MO, June-August Stein Gallery, solo exhibition, St. Louis, MO, April

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Selected Group Exhibitions 2018 OVERVIEW_2018, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, June-July

XX Encuentros Abiertos Festival de La Luz 2018, curated by Elda Harrington / Silvia Mangialardi, Buenos Aires, Argentina, August

Gift, National Juried Exhibition, curated by Dr. Jordan Ahmirkhani, Berry College, February

Aesthetic, Globe Med Art Auction, benefitting Youth Resource Center and Naigobya Nutrition Project with Uganda Developments

and Health Associates, St. Louis, February 2017 OVERVIEW_2017, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, June

Art Up Late: Mentors, Muses and Celebrities, Auction, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, October

Pilferage, curated by Jacob Laws, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, April 2016 Faculty Group Exhibition, Weitman Gallery, Washington University in St. Louis, October

Group Exhibition, One Gallery, in conjunction with Monev/ Stoyanov, Sofia, Bulgaria, March

OVERVIEW_2016, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, April 2015 CosMoscow, International Contemporary Art Fair, One Gallery, Moscow, Russia, September

AND / OR, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO, June (catalog)

Art:314, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, October 2014 Dangerous Beauty, as part of the European month of photography, Sofia Museum of History, Sofia, Bulgaria, November

Art:314, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, November

The Pathology of Glamour, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO, October

Portrait/Process, International Photography Hall of Fame Museum, St. Louis, MO, June- Oct.

Beyond Violet with the Emperor Scorpion, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO, March 2013 Dangerous Beauty, group exhibition, Graffit Gallery, Varna, Bulgaria, August- September

All of Me, group exhibition, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY, June-July

Dangerous Beauty, Work by Heather Bennett and Shannon Plumb, curated by Stephan Stoyanov,

Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY, March 2012 Flowers for You, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY, June 2011 FIAC Contemporary Art Fair, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, Paris, France, October

LOOP, Screen From Barcelona, contemporary video fair, Barcelona, Spain, May

To the Heart of a Woman, group exhibition, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, NY, February

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Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival, multiple locations, Birmingham, AL, September 24-26th 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Gallerie S.E., Bergen, Norway, September ROMA. The Road to Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Fair, Rome, Italy, May Six, The Empire Theatre on N. 3rd, Screening, Brooklyn, NY, May Phantoms, Red House Contemporary Arts Center, Syracuse, NY, February Exposed! Revealing Sources for Contemporary Art, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, August -October Phantoms, Le Loft du 202, Brussels, Belgium, May- June Art Brussels, Contemporary Art Fair, Brussels, Belgium, April I Am So Excited To Be Talking To You, Denizen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, April Alive, group exhibition, Marseille, France, November Singular, group exhibition, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY. February Phantoms, group exhibition, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY. November- December All the Way, group exhibition, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY. September Art-O-Rama, Contemporary Art Fair, Marseille, France, September Double X: Women Representing Women, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Aug.-September Art Chicago, Contemporary Art Fair, Chicago, IL. May Art Athina, Contemporary Art Fair, Athens, Greece, May-June Photo Femmes, group exhibition, Caren Golden Fine Art, New York, NY. November- January Art Copenhagen, Contemporary Art Fair, Gallerie S.E., Denmark, September FIAC Contemporary Art Fair, Luxe Gallery, Paris, France, October Singular, group exhibition, Gallerie S.E., Bergen, Norway, February-March APT., group exhibition, Angela Hanley Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. December FIAC Contemporary Art Fair, Luxe Gallery, Paris, France, October Its Not About Sex, group exhibition, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY, Summer USA Today, group exhibition, Gallerie S.E., Bergen, Norway, September-October FIAC Contemporary Art Fair, Luxe Gallery, Paris, France, October Douglas Dibble Memorial Art Auction, Hunter College-Times Square Gallery, NY, September Toronto Art Fair, Luxe Gallery, Toronto, Canada, October Mobile Livre, traveling group exhibition of artist’s books, March-October

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2001

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1998 1997

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Peculiarly Pink, inaugural group exhibition, Luxe Gallery at 57th St., New York, NY, April Affordable Art Fair, Luxe Gallery, New York, NY, October MFA Thesis Exhibition, Hunter College/Times Square Gallery, New York, NY, December Art of the NorthEast, curated by Bill Arning, Silvermine Gallery, New Canaan, CT, May Different Directions, Nese Alpan Gallery, New York, NY, December St. Mark’s 2000, curated by Leslie Jones of MOMA, New York, NY, March National Drawing Exhibition, New Jersey College of Art, Ewing, NJ, December Women’s Art Works, group exhibition, Rochester, NY, October One Night Stand, installation exhibition, Forum for Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO, Oct. Extirpate, five-person installation exhibition, Artloft Gallery, St. Louis, MO, May L.A. Young Guns, group exhibition, Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, January

Bibliography Hyperallergic, “Heather Bennett: Photos of Gifts”, Eileen G’Sell, Week of November 1, 2017 HEC-TV, “Women Wrapped in Bows at the Bruno David Gallery”, Interview by Kerry Marks, October 17, 2017 Ladue News, “Art & Soul: Heather Bennett”, Bryan Hollerbach, November 2017 Bruno David Gallery Publications, “Tongue-in-Cheek Fetishism, Tied Up with a Pretty Bow”, Eileen G’Sell, Cataogue Exhibition Essay, 2017 St. Louis Magazine, “Heather Bennett: Contemporary Artist”, Voyeur Series by Helene Sayad, January 2016 St. Louis Magazine, “Artist Heather Bennett’s Show Four Stories Explores Women in Society”, Helene Sayad, April 8, 2015.

St. Louis Public Radio/ NPR, Heather Bennett at Bruno David Projects, Willis Ryder Awrnold, March, 2015 Riverfront Times, “Heather Bennett’s Photographs in Four Stories Explore Mysteries of Four Women”, Kelly Glueck, St. Louis, March 11, 2015 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “‘Portrait/ Process’ Mixes Styles and Methods”, Sarah Bryan Miller, June 29, 2014 The Village Voice, “Pretty Vacant: Photographic Fiction and Fact”, R.C. Baker, April 16-22, 2014 The New York Photo Review, “As the World Turns”, Ed Barnas, April, 2014 The Design Daredevil, Heather Bennett- Art 314, Jesse Miller, November 2014 On Dangerous Beauty: Heather Bennett/Stephan Stoyanov, Bulgarian National Television, Sophia, Aug 2103 Artnet, “Weekend Update”, Walter Robinson, cover, October 4-9, 2010

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The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Art Copycats and Creative Borrowers”, Edward Sozanski, Sept. 6, 2009 Out & About, “Revealing Influence”, Michael Pollock, Vol. 22, No. 7, September, 2009 Ego Magazine, “Heather Bennett”, Gopuc Kocmaguhob, Feature, Bulgaria, September, 2008 Art Review Magazine, “Phantoms” at Luxe Gallery, Adam Mendelsohn, Feb. 2008 ParisArt, “Heather Bennett at Eva Hober Gallery”, Yael Hirsch, Nov. 2006 Art on Paper Magazine, “Report from Paris”, Chris Bors, December, 2006 ArtNet, Featured artist, early July, 2006 Intro Magazine, No. 20, Bulgaria, Xopo Toweb, Interview, March 2006 Bergen News, “Where to Go”, featured photo, February, 2006 Vogue (Spain), “FIAC”, featured photo, October 2004 ArtPress, “Fiac in Progress”, Judith Benhamou-Huet, featured photo, #305 October 2004 ArtPapers, “Heather Bennett”, Jeffrey Hughes, November-October, 2003 ArtNet, weekend cover, August 13, 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Fashion Victim”, David Bonetti, June 10, 2003 Ladue News, “Profile”, Helene Sayad, June 20, 2003 Die Welt, “Freche Modekopistin”, Annette Kusche, April 8, 2003 The New York Times, “Heather Bennett”, Ken Johnson, February 7, 2003 ArtNet, “Weekend Update”, Walter Robinson, February 5, 2003 Time Out New York, “Peculiarly Pink”, Ana Honigman May 2-9 2002 Umbrella Magazine, “Untitled 2001”, Vol. 25, No. 1, April 2002 The New York Times, “Different Directions”, December 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Artist Accents Mystery by Manipulating Letters”, Jeff Daniels, July 1998 Riverfront Times, “Heather Bennett: Love Letters”, Ivy Schroeder, July 1998 Time Off, “The ABC’s of Drawing”, New Jersey, March 1996

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Published Work “Photos of Gifts”, catalog published by Bruno David Gallery Publications, 60 pages, 2018 “Four Stories by Heather Bennett”, catalog published by Bruno David Gallery Publications, 40 pages, 2015 December Magazine, Ekphrasis Issue, “Anniversary (B&D)”, with Jen Logan Meyer’s “Anniversaries”, Vol. 21.1, Summer 2016 “The Hey Baby Book’, self-published, 250 pages, 2001/2015, stocked at Printed Matter, Inc, NYC, 2016-17 “Crush’, photographs and text, in conjunction with exhibition entitled Four Stories, 2014 Press releases, for various artists and galleries, New York, NY, throughout 2001-2013 Sidetrack (Snapshots, Outtakes, Polaroids 2001-2008): Work by Heather Bennett, 240 pages catalog, 2010 “Olney by Lisa Roy Sachs”, Lisa Roy Sachs, catalog essay, Spring 2008 “The Empire Trilogy”, limited edition portfolio and vinyl record, published by Stephan Stoyanov Gallery and Modern Multiples, LA, 2008 “Ellen Harvey”, Luxe Gallery, Flash Art International, July-September, 2007 “Les Francais a NYC”, 02 Magazine, Paris, France, May 2005 “Heather Bennett on Trine Lise Nedreaas”, Trine Lise Nedreaas, catalog essay, 2005 “Myth Today”, Gallery Bill, NYC, January 2003 “Untitled-2001’, small book documenting “Untitled” project stocked at Printed Matter, Inc., NYC, 2003.

Awards Regional Arts Commission, Artist Support Grant, St. Louis, June 2017 The Somerville Art Prize, New York, April 2002 William Graf Travel Abroad Scholarship, Hunter College, MFA, Winter, 2000 Marsha Hertzman Blasingame Award for Printmaking, 1994

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Selected Lectures Lecture, Assistant Professor of Art search, Washington University in St. Louis, January 2018 Invited Speaker/ Moderator, Fabian Marti, Parapet Real Humans, December 2017 Juror, Final Student Exhibition, Sackler Arts Center, Lindenwood College, May 2016 Invited Speaker, Perspective: Artist on Artist, Heather Bennett on Lisa Yuskavage at Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, lecture and tour, April 2016 Panel Member, A.I.R. Refreshed: Women in the Art World from the 1970s to Today, Sponsored by Washington University and the

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Olin Library, March, 2015 Visiting Artist, Visual Art & Design Core Talks, University of North Texas, Sage Hall, September 2014 Visiting Artist, Digital Media Collective, Hunter College- New York, NY, March 2013 Visiting artist lecture, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, November 2009 Visiting artist lecture, Webster University, St. Louis, September 2007 Visiting artist lecture, Washington University- St. Louis, Introduction to Art, October 2006 Visiting artist lecture, Meramec College, St. Louis, January 2000, April 2000 Visiting artist, lecture on installation “Five Days”, Washington University-St. Louis, October 1998

Teaching Experience Lecturer, Washington University in St. Louis, Fall 2014- Spring 2018, full teaching load including graduate advising and undergraduate coursework Louis D. Beaumont Artist in Residence, Washington University in St. Louis, 2013- 2014, full teaching load including graduate advising

and undergraduate coursework Adjunct Lecturer, Webster University-St. Louis Teaching assistant, intermediate painting, Professor Susan Crile, Hunter College, NY, NY, Spring 2001 Summer painting instructor, “Girls Inc.”, St. Louis, MO. 1996

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Selected Experience Otis College of Art and Design, Inaugural Summer Residency Program, Los Angeles, 2017 Scenic painter, journeyman USA-829, major motion pictures and television, New York, NY, 2000-2017 The Muny, St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre, journeyman scenic USA-829, summer 2014-2017 Muralist, independent contractor for private and public spaces, 1997-2002 Sculptor, MGA sculpture studio, commercial clients, St. Louis, 1996-2000

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brunodavidgallery.com brunodavidprojects.com @bdavidgallery #BrunoDavidGallery #HeatherBennett #PhotosOfGifts #photoraphy #EileenGSell #GoSeeArt #ExhibitionCatalog #ArtExhibition #ArtBook #ArtCatalog instagram.com/brunodavidgallery/ facebook.com/bruno.david.gallery twitter.com/bdavidgallery goodartnews.com/

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ARTISTS Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Ben Brough Michael Byron Bunny Burson Judy Child Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Damon Freed Douglass Freed

Michael Jantzen Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Xizi Liu Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey James Austin Murray Yvonne Osei Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise Judy Pfaff

Charles P. Reay Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Shane Simmons Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Ann Wimsatt Monika Wulfers

Ellen Jantzen

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