Ben Stout: TOE

March 6 – April 18, 2015

GALLERY TALK // Friday, March 27, 5:30 PM
Please join us for a gallery talk with Ben Stout and guest Bill Martin, Director of the Valentine. 

Doors will open at 5:30 pm and the talk will begin at 6 pm.

Refreshments and a cash bar will be provided.


ASSEMBLER // Tuesday, April 7, 5 PM
Join us for Assembler, a night of conversation about our current exhibition, Ben Stout TOE. Jason Hackett, artist and Associate Professor in VCU's Craft & Material Studies Department, will guide the discussion as the audience works together to assemble meaning around the exhibition.  

 

Two of Everything is Stout's most recent development in an on-going project that combines his interests in abstraction, documentation, and site-specificity. Using these different languages, Stout will translate a specific place--the Church Hill Tunnel--into a gallery-based installation. The following is an excerpt from the artists' statement:


"Two Of Everything, or TOE, is a continuation of a body of work that is site sensitive, site responsive, and committed to the thoroughfare. All of the work presented in this exhibition is based on the Church Hill Tunnel. Some of the materials that make up the work have been gleaned directly from the site, while others function as a signature of the site’s event context. Referring to the Church Hill Tunnel as a “tunnel” is something of a misuse of the term because in 1925 the tunnel collapsed. In addition to being a popular and haunted destination, the area is also a gravesite.

As it sits now, the Church Hill Tunnel is mass of wet ground, solid but certainly shifting that joins a derelict ravine and a swimming pool. All that remains are the east and west-end portals. If you follow Broad Street down into Shockhoe bottom, and turn left on 18th street you will notice the western portal on your right behind a gate, a pool, and a plaque. The east end is situated next to the bend of road where Franklin Street becomes S. 31st street."

 

 

To learn more about the artist, please visit his website: www.benstout.net.

 

TOE is sponsored in part by a Richmond Arts and Cultural District Micro Grant, facilitated by CultureWorks, and supported by the Linden Row Inn.


1708 Gallery's 2014-2015 exhibition season is generously supported in part by Jay Barrows, Bridget Beari Designs, Page and Sandy Bond, Josh and Sarah Eckhardt, Suzanna Fields and Richard Douglas, Mary Fleming, Suzanne Hall, Kathryn Henry-Choisser, Ben and Peggy Howerton, George and Linda Kelly, Heyn and Sandy Kjerulf, James Klaus and Brent Morris, Andrea Levine, Greg and Deb Lockhart, Reynolds Gallery, Bill and Pam Royall, John Ryan and Wesley Chenault, Chip and Lynn Spitzer, Andy and Jill Stefanovich, Ted and Katie Ukrop, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.