Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Ben Godward is a grounded artist, dedicated for fifteen years to rendering zestful sculptures out of his Bushwick studio by way of poured resins that pop with bright color and radiate social and political awareness. Yet he also never sits still. His work has gracefully eased from one distinct form to another, starting with playfully extruded foam and proceeding to more regulated wall pieces, then sleekly ominous wedges, and now new objects that are unabashedly open and beautiful. His latest body of work — on display in “Something Just Happened,” a very tight solo exhibition that just opened at Transmitter — suggests a more embracing approach to art and life without forsaking the visceral energy or knowing vigilance that have marked much of his earlier work.
Godward’s art invariably conveys movement as opposed to stillness. His show two summers ago featured missile-like forms that seemed not only kinetic but targeted, in acknowledgment of troubled times and the need for discriminate alertness. Two pieces of that variety, each with an apt complement of fiery orange, are in the background of the present show, serving as a frame of reference for the newly conceived pieces, which are wall-mounted. While their entry into three-dimensional space seems more permissive than invasive, leading with the interior, Godward’s edginess remains.
The central piece, luminous and flower-like, gets the bountiful title Cosmic Inflation (Birth of the Universe, or Why My Horoscope is Always Right) and its near-symmetry imparts conciliation and order; but it also resembles Cold War representations of nuclear peril. The other new pieces similarly hold out stability while gnawing at it. Kármán Line – the name for the boundary between Earth and outer space – is coolly blue and asymmetrical, perhaps nodding to the uncertainty of our place in the universe, which seems to be celebrated in Heeey Eh Hay (Where Everything is Already Complete, There is No Fulfillment), with dense orange blobs angling towards blank light to unknown consequence. Drawing its title from the ominous opening of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song, the sculpture Aaaaiehhhh Ahhhh appears in uneasy flux, confirming both fear and courage as part of the plan.
Godward’s acceptance of existential messiness and contradiction and his distaste for avoiding them are winningly clear-eyed qualities. Something has always just happened. Now the discomfiting duality that he has long sensed seems to have emerged to authoritative effect. Where there can be anarchy and threat, there can also be resolution and refuge, though neither tandem ever conclusively prevails. The dialogue accompanying the show between Godward and the gallerist merits reading in its entirety, and one Godward riff, playing off his early shelving of “gently patinated bronze” as inconsistent with the real world, is worthy of enshrinement: “We are not a refined, polished society. Every decision is an addition, there is no erasure. Bad decisions are lived with and reacted to, rarely do they lead to full disaster, but rather become something new to react to.” The pervasive tension he apprehends between repose and precariousness inhabits and energizes this confident and expansive new work.
“Ben Godward: Something Just Happened,” Transmitter, 1329 Willoughby Avenue, 2A, Brooklyn, NY. Through July 30, 2023.
Related posts:
Godward: Toward a distant target (2021)
Godward and upward at SLA (2016)
Ben Godward’s exploded view (2013)
Conversation: Bob Szantyr and Valery Jung (정) Estabrook
Painting? Painting?
These are dreamily beautiful, hovering between a vibrating dream and blurry reality.They don’t have to be political to make be meaningful.