Ben Werther

Ben Werther (b. 1998 Nashville, Tennessee) received his BFA from Cooper Union in 2020. An impulsive collector from a young age, his practice often employs collections of found materials which he recontextualizes as social artifacts.

In recent exhibitions, these collections have been synthesized through a variety of processes. Crayon rubbings of found handwritten notes, US state quarters stamped with conspiracy theories, and police scanners modified for contacting the spirit realm.

By treating subjective, revelatory, and often idiosyncratic found objects as highly objective, Werther strives to present each found object as its own primary source. When presented together as a larger, curated narrative, the elements reveal the causes and consequences of the construction of folklore.

“While a student in my third year at Cooper Union I had the revelation that the greatest single artwork a person could make would be to construct some form of (what is colloquially referred to as) a time machine. This would be the greatest sculpture. The artwork would end all cultural production because it would symbolize a collapse of all historical context through a means of absolute control through art. This would in turn negate the need for any analysis because our perception of history would finally be objective in full - in that we would be able to experience history in a one to one - in essence this would come to be known as the production of pure truth.

My initial ideas had to do with touch and the ways in which it can be used to connote the passage of time. Some type of processing or mechanization I believed at the time would be needed to aid in the production of this artwork. It was at this point I turned to making rubbings of public surfaces.”