Exhibitions : Visiting Artist Program : Rickert-Ziebold

Benjamin Cowden
A complex but inelegant system
December 5-9, 2005

The exhibition consists of a machine with which a viewer/operator can control a wooden marionette. The operator and marionette are separated by a partial wall, but the operator can see the marionette via a monitor set in the wall which is connected to a video camera in front of the marionette. the bulk of the machine is steel and brass and measures about 12 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet tall. The partial wall and "stage" are plywood and the wall is 5 feet tall and 3.5 feet wide.

Artist Biography

Benjamin Cowden began working with metal during an undergraduate anthropology project in Cameroon in 1997, where he studied how Baka Pygmies turned worn machetes into utility knives. He later worked with street-jewelers in Costa Rica, learning small metals techniques, before taking a more formal route to education by attending blacksmithing workshops at the John C. Campbell Folkschool in North Carolina. Benjamin was an Artist-in-Residence at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Tennessee from 2001 to 2003, during which time he focused on utilitarian forged ironwork, including furniture and kitchenware. Making work which viewers can touch and use remains central to Mr. Cowden’s work, and he is currently concentrating on a series of interactive sculptural machines while pursuing a Master of Fine Arts Degree at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Please contact Benjamin Cowden for further details.