Frank Benson’s first solo exhibition, three sculptures and a public work on top of the gallery.

The subject of “Framework 1 and 2” (both 2005) is indigenous to the space in which the pieces are exhibited—Benson has adorned the walls of this contemporary gallery with its down-market analogue, the frame shop. Benson gathered frame samples and arranged them on a grid of raw wood (similar to that used as stretcher bars for a painting). The chevron-shaped samples are arranged across the wooden lattice, at points overlapping and cutting into each other.

“Swan Gourd” (2005) is preserved in cast plastic and painted to resemble a fresh vegetable. It invites a frontal viewing, as defined by the frame which supports it. When you walk around the sculpture, the unpainted, labeled back of the frame sample is revealed.

With “Flag,” Benson has again selected a found object, manipulated it, and returned it to its natural setting. Benson distorted an American flag using a computer program that introduces “natural” weather forces to digitized images. He rendered the altered image in appliquéd Nylon fabric and now the 10×18 ft. Flag billows in the wind on top of the building at 259 10th Avenue (between 25th and 26th streets).

Frank Benson graduated with an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2003. In 2004 he was awarded with a grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation. He has been chosen for Make it Now: New Sculpture in New York (May 15-July 31, 2005), at Sculpture Center. He has been included in group exhibitions at Regen Projects, Grant Selwyn and the Happy Lion (all in Los Angeles, CA), Lombard Freid, and Artists Space (New York). In the fall of 2005, he will be featured in a group show of American sculptors at the Astrup Fearnely Museum in Oslo, Norway.