"Artist Ben Sisto is the world's leading expert on "Who Let the Dogs Out," as evidenced by his collection of over 250 pieces of memorabilia and artifacts. In this multimedia presentation, he tells the stories of musicians, lawyers and fans from all around the world, shining a light on the origins of that catchy pop abomination you're ashamed you can't stop yourself from singing along to." - Time Out New York
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Mention in piece on Art Basil (LA Times, 2015)
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John Kilduff
to me
I like it....so I will be digging a hole 17.84 in deep in the 12x12 space? That should work....
unless I hit bedrock.
Sent from my iPhone
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from me
To John
Here's what I'd like to do:
You2
Ben Sisto, 2015
For his project You (2007), Urs Fischer dug a hole in Gavin Brown's Enterprise floor about 38 feet by 30 feet, and eight feet deep. At an estimated $250,000 cost to Brown, the crater totaled about 9,120 cubic feet — so about $27.41 per cubic foot. Based on this estimate, and the price of a booth at Art Basil being $50 for a 12" x 12" section of ground, I'm requesting you dig a hole in my space 17.84" deep, or about 1.82 cubic feet.
I'm not sure how this impacts the structural integrity of Art Basil — let me know if you find the project agreeable and I'll send you the $50.
Thank you,
Ben
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Untouchable Numbers
I can’t believe they let me…
In 2017 I pulled off one of my all time favorite happenings: Untouchable Numbers. All nine then-existing Ace Hotel locations let me broadcast a 24-hour John Cage playlist in their lobbies, in partnership with Mode Records and the John Cage Trust.
216 total hours of Cage:
Chicago
London
Los Angeles
New Orleans
New York City
Palm Springs
Pittsburgh
Portland
Seattle
Original Promo Copy
“In 1952 a composer called John Cage told us there was music in silence, and the world hasn't been the same since. Today, the gradual wearing away of stone by water, the echoes of gravitational waves, and the caloric metamorphosis of food into energy may all be understood as musical works, a privilege for which we are indebted to Cage.
September 5, 2017 would have been Cage's 105th birthday, and to commemorate and honor our favorite sonic philosopher, Ace Hotel and the John Cage Trust, in partnership with Mode Records, present Untouchable Numbers, a 24-hour listening event beginning at 12am. Cage's sounds, and silences, will play throughout public spaces of all nine Ace Hotels as the earth completes one full rotation, freely and open to the public. In New Orleans, you can hear the tunes playing back in our Lobby.
Learn more about where to hear Cage across our properties here, and consider booking a room with the promo code SILENCE, valid for stays from 9/4-9/6. RSVP suggested but not required. Seating in public spaces is first come, serve.
Listening is a radical act.”
Web Safe 2k16
2/16/16 — 9/18/16
“Web Safe 2k16 is a literary/graphic project exploring our memories of the pre-broadband Internet and related technologies. The project uses Lynda Weinman’s Web Safe color palette as a field of reference constraining a large and heterogeneous archive of personal recollections: 216 authors write 216 words each, inspired by a specific color in the web safe range.” - Jo Livingston
Live Events:
Web Safe 2k16 at 64 Bits, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, 30 March - 21 April 2017
Web Safe 2k16 Live in London, 21 March 2017, Ace Hotel, Shoreditch
Web Safe 2k16 Live in Boston, November 19, 2016, PRX Podcast Garage
Web Safe 2k16 Live in New York, September 18, 2016, Brooklyn Book Festival
Used Books
Used Books, Solo Show, Good Work Gallery, Brooklyn, 2014
Curated by Joshua Caleb Weibley. Works included were Doubles, Doublespace, Interaction of Interaction of Color, It’s the Ghost, Let’s Be Frank and Typo. There was an interview around the show via Electric Literature.
Taking nods from Conceptualism, and with a fondness for free culture and secondary markets, Ben Sisto’s work cuts —sometimes literally— through years of canonical figures from art history up to the present. The punningly descriptive title Used Books explains both the collected works’ methodology and sources: all materials on display have been purchased second-hand via online retailers (Albris, Abe Books, etc) and local shops (The Strand, Book Thug Nation, Spoonbill & Sugartown, etc).
While he is pleased to consider monetary offers for the works on display in this exhibition, Sisto insists they be viewed primarily as versions of affordable art anyone can collect and create.
Among the works in this exhibition, two address a Cagean non-static conception of repetition:
In the ongoing work Interaction of Interaction of Color Sisto seeks out all 28 print-runs of the 1979 revised edition of Joseph Albers’ seminal Interaction of Color (Yale). Presenting the copies collected thus far calls attention to minor discrepancies in the back-cover’s layout (a collage designed by Eva Hesse) which, along with the different copies’ yellowing and wear, constitute the piece’s titular “interaction.”
With Pair, Sisto playfully applies the same treatment to two copies of a Roni Horn exhibition catalog. When offset slightly (vertically), Horn’s original apparently near-identical sculptures intended for exhibition in separate rooms now appear in the same expanded space.
The public is invited to view these works and others at a reception for the artist March 7th from 7-10pm.
Joshua Caleb Weibley
Brooklyn, NY 2014
What I'm Trying to Say
“What I’m Trying to Say” was produced for a website called Parallelograms.info, who sent me an image of an organist and asked me to create a web-based work in response to it. The project can be seen as documentation of how I surf the web; the things I enjoy clicking on and resulting connections made. The final stop was a performance with SR Palm.
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