NED VENA

Born 1982, Boston, MA
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

Education

2005 BFA Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
2004 AICAD New York Studio Program

Solo Exhibitions

2012
Clifton Benevento, New York, NY
White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO

2011
Société, Berlin, Germany
Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA

2010
Clifton Benevento, New York, NY
Max Hans Daniel, Berlin, Germany

2009
800 Numbers, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN
Michael Benevento, Los Angeles, CA

2008
Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin
Cohan and Leslie Gallery, New York, NY

Group Exhibitions

2012
SIXTH SAX, Halsey McKay, East Hampton, NY
Trojan Horses, Bugada & Cargnel, Paris, France
Home Again, Again, The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
The Space in Between, Steven Zevitas Gallery, Boston, MA
Minimal Myth, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Josh Kolbo & Ned Vena, Société Berlin, Germany
Into the surface, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy
Soft OP, Modern Collections, London, UK

2011
Sentimental Education, Gavlak Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
Les Affranchis, Frac Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
I don’t know if it makes any sense – I feel quite dizzy and a little drunk due to the blow. I will return with more info shortly…, IMO, Copenhagen, Denmark
Summer Whites, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY
Everything You Can Imagine Is Real…, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium
One Dozen Paintings, The Journal, New York, NY
Gruppenausstellung 2, Max Hans Daniel, Berlin
Curating the Contemporary (with Joseph Montgomery), Basel, Switzerland

2010
The Power of Selection, Western Exhibitions, Chicago, IL
Skins, curated by Alex Gartenfeld, OHWOW, Miami, FL
The Mass Ornament, Barbara Gladstone, New York, NY
Shape Language, Nicole Klagsbrun, New York, NY
Substance Abuse, Leo’s Projekte, New York, NY
Metallika, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, NY
The Blood of a Poet, Thierry Goldberg Projects, New York, NY
Célébration, Frac Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
All the Splendors of the Earth (Part 2), Cave, Detroit, MI
Home Grown, The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA

2009
Gruppenausstellung, Autocenter, Berlin
Nothing I to say and I am Saying it, Kunstverein Freiburg, Germany
If the Dogs are Barking, Artist’s Space, New York, NY
Maximal Minimal, Primo Piano, Lugano, Switzerland
From the collection of White Columns, New York, NY
Group Show, Cave, Detroit, MI
This is not the Striezelmarkt, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden, Germany

2008
Blue Sky, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden, Germany
B Seite, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin, Germany
Psych, Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, Dusseldorf, Germany
Back to Black, Schwarz in der aktuellen malerei, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany
Friends and Family, Anton Kern, New York, NY
Cube Passerby, organized by Michael Caputo and Gavin Brown, Passerby, New York, NY

2007
Ilya Lipkin, Sean Raspet, Ned Vena, Cohan and Leslie, New York, NY
Selections from the Permanent Collection, BC Project Room, Brooklyn, NY
Untitled (Perfect Lovers), BC Project Room, Brooklyn, NY

2006
Attic, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY

Bibliography

2012
Claire Barliant, “Ned Vena at Clifton Benevento,” The New Yorker, May
Brienne Walsch, “Double Painting with Ned Vena,” Art in America online, May 3
Tim Saltarelli, “Ned Vena, Abstract Labor,” Zero Deux, Numero 61, March
Laura E. Barone, “Ned Vena at White Flag Projects,” Temporary Art Review, March 15

2011
Michael Shaw, “Ned Vena at Michael Benevento,” ArtScene, May
Antonio Scoccimarro, “Ned Vena at Michael Benevento, Los Angeles,” Mousse Magazine, April-May, p.123
“Ned Vena at Michael Benevento, Los Angeles,” Mousse (online), April
Geoff Tuck, “Ned Vena at Michael Benevento,” Notes on Looking, April

2010
“Shape Language,” The New Yorker, July 20, p. 4
Russeth, A., “The Mass Ornament,” Modern Painters (online), 29 July

April 28 – June 16, 2012

 “The painter should know which type of painting is suitable for him and limit himself to this type.” – Louis chevalier de Jaucourt

The paintings in this exhibition are a reaction to an anxiety that developed after several years of making similar paintings over and over again, not so much as a conceptual strategy, but as a compulsion, an endgame, something that I haven’t been able to control or break out of. I wanted to apply the anxiety generated through this type of repetition to the process of painting; to make the same painting over and over again in a single work, to have one body of work generate two (or more???).  – Ned Vena

Clifton Benevento is pleased to present its second solo exhibition of New York-based artist Ned Vena. In an exhibition comprised of ink blotter paintings and acid-etched security glass panels, Vena’s newest body of work reveals a practice traversing painting, sculpture and site-specific installation mediated by issues of materiality and minimalism, of abstraction and technical process.

Upon entering the gallery, one is confronted with walls of acid etched glass. Foreclosing the entry space and urging viewers to circumnavigate the work, the materials of Vena’s glass panels recall the artist’s earlier interests in elements of industrial materials processed through a street vernacular of graffiti. To create these new security glass panel works Vena throws acid at large panels of security glass the way a painter might pour paint on a canvas – gesturing to mark making strategies, rooted both in conceptualism and vandalism.

After the initial acid application a second piece of glass is pressed on the first panel and then removed to create a second object with the same etched mark.  Deploying and problematizing the grid pattern embedded in the glass, the panels are arranged asymmetrically and presented side-by-side to embrace an economy of means akin to a Rorschach pattern.  Vena’s acid etched glass plays with associations of the readymade and obfuscates the material controls frequently associated with industrial goods.

Further expanding the artist’s interest in industrial materials and material economy, Vena presents a new body of canvas paintings using Garvey violet price marking ink.  Pressed through a stencil over two different pieces of canvas stretched atop each other on the same set of stretcher bars, the highly saturated ink records a single painterly gesture on two different surfaces simultaneously.  The canvasses are then separated and the top one is re-stretched onto a new set of same-sized stretcher bars. The result is two formally different works from a single painterly application of medium:  one on a raw canvas and the other on a primed surface.  Suggesting an interest in production, seriality and repetition but not through photographic or digital means, both paintings contain gestural similarities resulting from a single process.

Ned Vena has had recent solo exhibitions at White Flag Projects (St. Louis, MO), Société, (Berlin) and Michael Benevento (Los Angeles). Group exhibitions at international galleries and museums include Frac Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, (France
), Xavier Hufkens, (Brussels), The Journal, (NY), Barbara Gladstone (NY) and Curating the Contemporary (with Joseph Montgomery), (Basel).  Ned Vena (b.1982) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

The exhibition will run from April 28 – June 16, 2012; opening reception is Saturday, April 28 from 5-7pm.  The gallery is located at 515 Broadway between Spring and Broome streets, New York, NY.  Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-6pm.  For more information please contact Michael at mc@cliftonbenevento.com. 

Claire Barliant, “Ned Vena at Clifton Benevento”. The New Yorker. May 2012.
PDF OF REVIEW

Brienne Walsh, “Double Painting with Ned Vena”. Art in America online. May 3, 2012.
PDF OF REVIEW