Solo Show
Perimeter Gallery, Chicago
Feb 10 – March 10, 2012
Revolution – special installation
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Oct 2012
Essay by J. Susan Isaacs, Ph.D.
Curator, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts
| For immediate release | August 7, 2007 |
(WILMINGTON, DE)—August 17, 2007—January 6, 2008. It is rare for the DCCA to devote two of its largest galleries to the work of a single artist, but Ben Whitehouse's current body of work absolutely required it. Whitehouse not only creates large-scale individual paintings and large installations comprised of smaller paintings, but he has now entered the world of time-based video, utilizing sixty-five inch plasma screens. The scale of the subject matter—vast landscapes—and the scale of the presentations—painting installations and video—absolutely necessitated large galleries with high ceilings. The DCCA is a perfect environment for viewing these works. There are two painting installations and two digital installations in the exhibition.
The two digital works in the exhibition, Northbar Lake and Central Park, act as movements of a larger symphony; they are high-definition digital videos that make up part of the bigger body of work, Revolution. They were shot and are meant to be viewed in real time, recording every movement, change of light, weather and mood that takes place at a particular location in a twenty-four hour period, or one revolution of the planet. Sixty-five inch Panasonic plasma monitors display them in real time. The artist sees the screens as "living canvasses" and the videos themselves as "digital paintings." He views these works as meditations on change and time.
Whitehouse was born and reared in London and received his MFA at the University of Chicago. He currently lives and works in the United States. He has been a painter of landscapes for more than fifteen years. Whitehouse has shown his work at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan; the Edward Carson Waller Museum in Glencoe, Illinois; Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo; and The Evanston Art Center, Evanston, Illinois, among many others. His work can be found in the public collections of The Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan; Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, New York; and the Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, Illinois. It has been reviewed in the pages of Artforum, American Arts Quarterly, the Chicago Tribune, the New Art Examiner, and Art News.
Major support for this exhibition has been provided by DuPont.
All plasma Screens, cameras, and speakers used to create Revolution generously provided by Panasonic.
This exhibition has been made possible, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware,
in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
The DCCA, a non-collecting art museum founded in 1979, presents more than 30 exhibitions annually of regionally, nationally and internationally recognized artists that explore topical issues in contemporary art and society, as well as symposia, lectures and tours. The DCCA provides individual studios to more than 25 artists, who also exhibit regularly within its galleries and throughout the region. The DCCA presents a variety of educational and outreach programs, including one that integrates contemporary arts into the public school curriculum, and artists' residencies that feature collaboration with underserved community groups. The center is housed in a renovated industrial building at 200 South Madison St. in the heart of the rejuvenated Wilmington Riverfront.
DCCA gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday. Admission is $5 adults, $3 for students and senior citizens (age 65 and up), with children under 12 admitted free. Admission is pay as you like on Wednesday and free until 1 p.m. Saturday. The DCCA is wheelchair-accessible; visitors with special needs are urged to call in advance. DCCA exhibitions and programs are made possible, in part, through private contributions, members' support, and major grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Delaware Division of the Arts.