Will Benedict: Hello Greedy Citizens
current exhibition exhibition
overview
Balice Hertling is pleased to announce « Hello Greedy Citizens », the third solo show by Will Benedict at the gallery, opening May 6, through June 7, 2025.
Working across various media, Will Benedict engages in a process of deconstruction, hybridization, and recomposition of the image. His work critically—and often humorously—addresses popular media, commercial production, and advertising, creating a kind of semiotics of consumption and its symbology.
Will Benedict (b. 1978, Los Angeles, USA) currently lives and works in Paris. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art (Copenhagen, 2024); Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva, 2022); Balice Hertling (Paris, 2018 and 2014); Fondazione Giuliani (Rome, 2017); Artspace (Auckland, 2015); Bergen Kunsthall (Bergen, 2014); and Halle für Kunst (Lüneburg, 2013), among others.
He has also participated in group exhibitions at institutions including Fondazione MAST (Bologna, 2024); Balice Hertling (Paris, 2022); Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement (Geneva, 2021); Belgrade Biennial (Belgrade, 2021); Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 2019); MMK (Frankfurt, 2018); the 9th Berlin Biennale (Berlin, 2016); 18th Fondation Pernod Ricard Prize (Paris, 2016); and the 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana, 2015). His performance Pandemonium (curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou) was held at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection (Paris, 2023).
Works by Will Benedict are included in numerous collections, including the Aïshti Foundation (Lebanon), Albertina Museum (Vienna, Austria), CC Foundation (China), CNAP (France), Dallas Museum of Art (Texas, USA), Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette (France), FMAC Genève (Switzerland), Giuliani Foundation (Italy), and the MMK (Germany), among others.
Working across various media, Will Benedict engages in a process of deconstruction, hybridization, and recomposition of the image. His work critically—and often humorously—addresses popular media, commercial production, and advertising, creating a kind of semiotics of consumption and its symbology.
Will Benedict (b. 1978, Los Angeles, USA) currently lives and works in Paris. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art (Copenhagen, 2024); Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva, 2022); Balice Hertling (Paris, 2018 and 2014); Fondazione Giuliani (Rome, 2017); Artspace (Auckland, 2015); Bergen Kunsthall (Bergen, 2014); and Halle für Kunst (Lüneburg, 2013), among others.
He has also participated in group exhibitions at institutions including Fondazione MAST (Bologna, 2024); Balice Hertling (Paris, 2022); Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement (Geneva, 2021); Belgrade Biennial (Belgrade, 2021); Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 2019); MMK (Frankfurt, 2018); the 9th Berlin Biennale (Berlin, 2016); 18th Fondation Pernod Ricard Prize (Paris, 2016); and the 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana, 2015). His performance Pandemonium (curated by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou) was held at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection (Paris, 2023).
Works by Will Benedict are included in numerous collections, including the Aïshti Foundation (Lebanon), Albertina Museum (Vienna, Austria), CC Foundation (China), CNAP (France), Dallas Museum of Art (Texas, USA), Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette (France), FMAC Genève (Switzerland), Giuliani Foundation (Italy), and the MMK (Germany), among others.
installation Views
works
press release
Hello Greedy Citizens
Last year I wrote a press release for an exhibition in Brussels called Throwing Bodies at the Problem. I don’t think this new exhibition opening in Paris at Balice Hertling is so different than the last one. The art works in the exhibition are new but the issues and themes are very much the same. Stillness vs. action. Flatness vs. depth. Greed vs. humanity. Metaphysics vs. materialism. Classicism vs. Romanticism. Cats vs. dogs. You know… the big issues.
Death march is a business term describing the often futile practice of increasing the number of employees working on a project in hopes of achieving an unlikely goal. It is also commonly referred to as “throwing bodies at the problem.”
It’s getting easier everyday to rewrite history. Not because people are more gullible, or because it’s a failure of education, but because the truth sucks at controlling the narrative.
It’s like that Mark Twain quote, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts on its shoes.” Except, Mark Twain didn’t actually say that.
During the Stock Market Crash of 1929, did Wall Street investors really jump off buildings?
No. This urban legend gained most of its traction from the attributed quote below. When he was visiting New York, Winston Churchill was awakened by the noise of a crowd outside the Savoy-Plaza Hotel the day after Black Tuesday. Later he wrote, “Under my very window a gentleman cast himself down fifteen stories and was dashed to pieces, causing a wild commotion and the arrival of the fire brigade.”
Unfortunately, as was later verified, Churchill had mistaken a window washer for a stockbroker.
Historically, almost all major and minor North American stock market crashes occur, or begin, in the month of October. Prominent October market crashes have occurred in the years 1907, 1929, 1987, 1989, 1997, 2002 and 2007.
The market has never opened down on November 1st.
I don’t mean for this to sound designed. Instead it’s an issue of probabilities; the probability of greed, the probability of fascists, the probability of apartheid, the physical world’s habit of “throwing bodies at the problem” and the fact that the world has agreed to take a break in August.
I usually have pretty specific ideas of what I want to make but I can never really be sure how close, or far, the original idea will get from where we end up. Sometimes the further the better and sometimes I just want exactly what I want. Some works in this show are extremely precise visions that were executed as faithfully to the original idea as possible and other works are like cats painting with their shit. Cats don’t paint with their shit. In fact cats are really concerned that their shits be reintegrated into the natural world. They don’t want that shit to build up and take over reality. Which would seem to make cats a lot smarter than people. But they aren’t.
Will the lies never end?
Text by Will Benedict
