Benjamin Gill: There Is Nothing To Explain The Way You Are
@ DIG
2003 N Point, 3, Chicago, IL 60647
Opening Saturday, July 31st, from 7PM - 10PM
“You are far weirder than someone merely into S&M. At least they have a tradition. We have some idea what S&M is about. There’s movies and books about it. But so far as I know, there is nothing to explain the way you are.”
In Whit Stillman’s 1994 film Barcelona, Chris Eigerman’s expertly portrayed acerbic, tactless naval officer Fred has his cousin Ted nailed—a man who spends entirely too much effort analyzing the smallest subtext of his decisions. Reading complicated narratives into otherwise simple relationships, he applies elaborate and largely irrelevant sales and management strategies to the smallest personal decisions. Ted is not completely wrong; his analysis is often sensitive, sophisticated, and convincing, despite how often it’s missing the obvious and the readily apparent. Ted has trouble recognizing there are factors he cannot control.
Ben Gill has taken the title of this exhibition from this quote for his unusual approach to this new body of work. In his obsessive care for specificity, Gill has produced works both off-the-cuff and complex. His works are full of unfinished narrative, overly self-reflexive gestures, and misleading signifiers.
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