Kick Ass Nail Your Butt to the Wall Glass Sculptur

source: woodesoncouk

Ben Woodeson is, at heart, concerned with traditionally modernist sculptural ideas, exploring and highlighting the physical properties of the materials that he works with. But Woodeson takes modernism’s ‘truth to materials’ maxim to a logical extreme by making the viewer aware not only of the materiality of the sculptural objects but also of the viewer’s very own physical properties: the softness of our flesh is never more apparent than when threatened by the edge of a tensioned sheet of unframed glass; the openness of our nervous system when in proximity to an electric charge; the skull beneath the skin when confronted by a rapidly swinging cobblestone. If a trend in recent art has been to view the artwork as an interaction not between viewer and object but rather between multiple participants – relational aesthetics’ intersubjective understanding of art – Woodeson’s work might instead be described as intrasubjective; making the viewer acutely aware of their own corporeality as the work forces them to rely on their own sense of proprioception. To achieve this, Woodson utilises a – sometimes literal – high-wire act, walking that narrow line that defines the limit of his materials, stressing them with potential energy until the weakest link in a molecular chain gives up and the sculpture’s sense of self is ruptured.

Text by David Barrett, reproduced with thanks
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source: itsnicethat

The monopoly “controversial” art holds on being the most reactionary and evocative is well over, just look at the extraordinarily tense artworks of Ben Woodeson and tell me your hands don’t start to claw and your neck itch or however it is you unconsciously react to some impending doom.

Ben’s work harnesses, with acute tension, the sensation of watching a door slam or a glass tip over when you’re just not close enough to stop it. Only his installations involve materials with more spectacularly destructive potential, panes of glass being a clear favourite.