Tools As Art: The Hechinger Collection

Collection Database

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

← →

Barton Lidicé Benes, Reliquary/Pier 48 Hudson River, 1982
mixed media on paper
30 x 22 in.

Barton Lidicé Beneš was born in New Jersey in 1942. He studied painting at the Pratt Institute, New York, in 1960-61 and graphics at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Avignon, France in 1968. Beneš works in a variety of media, including sculpture, collage, and printmaking. His work has been widely exhibited at museums in the United States, including sculpture, collage, and printmaking. His work has been widely exhibited at museums in the United States, including the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, the Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the Alternative Museum, New York. His work is included in the collections of the National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Beneš uses all sorts of found objects, as well as objects collected in his travels around the world, to create his collages, sculptures, and assemblages. His works are humorous explorations of societal customs and assumptions. In 1983 Beneš made a series of collages and paper sculptures from six million dollars in shredded bills he was given by the Federal Reserve Board. In another series, "Letters to My Aunt Evelyn," Beneš incorporated portions of his correspondence with his aunt in his objects. His pieces often include visual puns and are often crafted to look as if they were made from other media. The artist extends his punning to the titles, whose meaning becomes central to the object.