Benjamin Schulman
Artist Statement

In the past five years, I have drastically shifted the conceptual direction of my work. While I have always been interested in the social dynamics of contemporary culture, this new body of work is much more politically charged. Initially, I created ceramic sculptures derived from contemporary lawn ornamentation. These sculptures critique our acceptance of—even our romance with—figures propagating racial stereotypes. As an outgrowth of this work, I developed a more expansive and comprehensive artistic vocabulary, the “Iconography of the Ghetto” which includes objects like guns, microphones and boxing gloves. I use these objects, many which are racially “tagged,” to take a frank look at the current state of race in the United States.

My work is not meant to reinforce societal stereotypes, but rather to reveal some of the ways in which these stereotypes have literally become part of the everyday landscape. By exaggerating certain aspects of the figures I make, I confront the reality behind these cherished icons of our culture. I juxtapose objects denoting innocence (such as a little girl skipping in a field of flowers) with objects denoting aggression and violence (guns, dark clouds), thereby putting into focus how we connect certain groups to certain objects and then how we connect both to narratives of goodness and evil. The larger metaphor in my work, therefore, is our fear and distrust of the “Other.” Since 9/11, xenophobia in the U.S. has intensified, ironically causing a greater division between groups of Americans. I see my art as an instrument through which to evaluate our environment, our culture and current events. I am not African American, but I am American during an unparalleled moment of cultural crisis.

I use ceramics as the prominent material in my sculptures as a way of reiterating the quotidian aspect of my sculptures. The material is historically utilitarian, different than most other materials used in art making because of its close association to everyday use; a common material used to make common objects. There is nothing inherently special about clay, but this is precisely the point: clay objects often go unnoticed and unremarked. When I re-cast them, add shocks of color, bejewel them, and surround them with ominous black clouds, I capitalize on this tension between the ordinary and the scandalous. I foist them into the present tense, a postmodern paradigm which oscillates between bleakness and vibrancy; innocence and depravity; and fear and rapture.