KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is delighted to present BABY, LO SIENTO, the first solo exhibition by artist Jesus Benavente with KATES-FERRI PROJECTS. The exhibition will be shown in The B-Side of the gallery, located at 563 Grand Street, NYC 10002, from November 16 to December 10, 2023.

          As his biography indicates, Benavente is an amazing and attractive visual artist. Born in San Antonio, Texas, the whimsical provocateur often tackles heady topics, such as identity, acceptance, immigration, and social justice, through the soft touch of humor. BABY, LO SIENTO features two bodies of work, his Painting series and one of his newest works, A Life, A House, and a Dog Named Triste (2023). Consistent with his oeuvre, these works reveal Benavente’s own suspicious and curious personality and approach to making work. With a great deal of caution and forethought, the artist questions assertions, such as paintings being perceived as the pinnacle of artmaking, and defaults, such as gentrification being inevitable. 

            In his Painting series, Benavente does all he could to challenge one’s expectations of painting, while still creating paintings that fit into his practice. Paintings are being preserved and conserved in institutions, artists provide the most stable conditions for their work which would allow for greater chemical longevity. Intentionally combatting this norm, Benavente uses automotive spray paint to create a single-color base on galvanized sheet metal, which the instructions on the spray paint even notes specifically that one should not use the substance on sheet metal. The artist then paints slogans similar to that of protest signage in gouache and blasts the drying work with water. The resulting effect of the painting is unpredictable, as Benavente relinquishes control over the final image of the painting, and the paintings are rather sad. 

De America Yo Soy (2020) is one such “painting” and it feels melancholic, like a washed-up post-protest sign that failed to inspire change as anticipated. The title came from a lyric in the Los Tigres del Norte hit, “América.” Often using songs as a connective tissue for its relatability, Benavente suggests, as the song does, that all people in the Americas are Americans, but not all Americans are accepted in America. Weary of protest language, Benavente makes these expressionistic paintings that accurately reflect precacious positions of perceived alien bodies within the US. 

            Using his particular brand of dry wit, Benavente examines and further reveals the US treatment of people of lower economic means, which are predominately people of color and immigrants, through A Life, A House, and a Dog Named Triste. The sculptural work consists of an inflated bouncy castle that is stuffed into a small space. The mangled portions of this air-filled structure is compressed and bulging out of its confines. As a metaphor for the rapid gentrification of affordable lands and homes, the work conveys the pressures to relocate over and over again and into smaller and smaller spaces, due to the inflation of prices that take over entire neighborhoods. Like the air within the sculpture, people are forced to move out of the lava flow of development pouring into the next hot spot. Benavente humorously demonstrates the displaced people’s experiences in this exacting and easy to comprehend gesture. 

BABY, LO SIENTO alludes to the half-hearted apologies that provide no real substance for the listener, such as gentrifiers’ non-apologies to the displaced or fake allies who feigns pity for racism and prejudice. Abraham Lincoln famously said at the end of the Civil War, “I laugh because I must not weep,” which has since been modernize to “If I did not laugh, I would cry.” In the same vein, Benavente’s work illuminate sorrowful truths with humor, so that audiences could enter the topic lightheartedly, while not lessening the seriousness of the situations that are often far too complex and difficult.

Artist Statement: I make work at the intersection of "I can't believe I have to spell this out to you" and "yes, I know what I'm doing. I'm glad you caught that." My practice is founded in performance. Then expands into various mediums. As a Mexican-American from an impoverished community, I use humor/comedy to define and pressure cultural conventions and allow viewers to confront internal bias. Formal elements and an informal attitude interweave these divergent practices/mediums to create a larger body of work that gives the audience and viewers what they want, and makes certain to also give them what they need.

Artist Bio: Jesus Benavente is an amazing and attractive visual artist. Jesus earned an MFA from the Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent exhibitions and performances include Whitney Museum, New York, NY; Queens Museum, Queens, NY; LTD Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Performa 13, NY; Acre Projects, Chicago, IL; Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; Neuberger Museum of Art, NY; Shin Museum of Art, South Korea; Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA; Socrates Sculpture Park, NY and Austin Museum of Art, TX. Born in San Antonio, TX, Jesus Benavente lives/works in Brooklyn, NY. San Anto es donde está mi corazón.

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