The Real Deep Dive
Taking Stock (2017-2019)
After graduating from my MFA, I started teaching right away. While building my courses, I realized that some of the exercises I gave my students might also be helpful to me. That first year became a period of unpacking what I had just accomplished and trying to articulate where I was now. I built what I called an “artist chronology,” interviewed family members, combed through photographs and souvenirs, and inventoried the clothes I wore, the presents I received, the music I listened to, the movies and television I watched, and the relationships and experiences that had shaped me. I looked for patterns, pivotal moments and outliers. The result was an autobiographical essay that became something of a guide to my own work. Shortly thereafter, I began a year-long BOLT residency at the Chicago Artists Coalition. Things opened up from there: a solo booth at EXPO Chicago, group exhibitions across the Midwest, commissions and other opportunities. I had spent 2016–17 figuring out how I got here. Then, in 2018, I got back to work.
YOU ARE HERE: 2017–2019
Jump to the bottom and work your way back up.
Back up already? Visit another section:
“By the time I’ll See You When You Get Here opened in December 2019, I had started to realize that I was no longer satisfied with how my sensibilities as a maker were manifesting in my work. I was bored. A week before the exhibition opened, I saw Céline Dion perform live and cried through the entire concert. The intensity of that emotional experience became the bar I wanted to set for myself and my work going forward. I knew I needed to pivot—from visual art toward performance.”
— Adapted from Ben LaRose’s writings on the pivot, 2021–26
Tremors, 2019
Performative installation with Motionettes, Styrofoam containers and extension cord. 26½ × 38 × 9 in.
“I had obviously not anticipated how much this exhibition would foreshadow what was to come. I was thinking about elders being lonely, waiting for visitors, empty coat hooks by the door, and the passage of time when no one comes. The exhibition closed in January 2020. A few months later, the global pandemic transformed those ideas into a reality none of us could have anticipated.”
— Ben LaRose, artist’s note, 2026
I’ll See You When You Get Here, 2019–2020
Solo exhibition at Material Exhibitions, Chicago, December 8, 2019–January 19, 2020. Photography: James Prinz.
“Instead, Benjamin turned away from maximalist aesthetics and turned toward the sentiments involved in the holidays. While still using the objects that are the stuff of surface and decoration, Larose digs deeper, strips these objects of their clothing, color and contents. … Larose has created a contemplative anticipation: consider waiting. We understand that this isn’t the first time nor the last, but that the waiting period, the empty time is a time when we can be the most reflective.”
— Nancy Wisti-Grayson and Jean Alexander Frater, “Waiting, at last,” 2019
“Things moved very quickly after BOLT. My first major solo exhibition led to a solo presentation at EXPO Chicago, while my work was simultaneously beginning to travel to exhibitions across the Midwest, including the John Michael Kohler Art Center. It felt like one opportunity kept propelling me toward the next. In 2019, that momentum culminated in being named one of Newcity Magazine’s Breakout Artists—recognition that, for me, represented the cumulative effect of those very intense two years.”
— Adapted from Ben LaRose’s career narrative, 2021–22
Chromodex, 2019. Color field paintings in motion.
Chromodex, 2019
Rolodex, acrylic, ink. Dimensions variable. From the Chromodex Collection, Spring 2019. Photography: James Prinz.
Artist Interview, 2019
Ben LaRose discusses Squall and his work for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Squall, 2019
Performance at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, March 23, 2019. Performance: Ben LaRose.
“I thought of the snow globes as ‘contained snowstorms.’ During the performance, I played them one by one, beginning with a single snow globe song and gradually adding more until their individual melodies accumulated into a cacophony. These mass-produced souvenirs—objects designed to hold a memory that could belong to almost anyone—became something much more unruly when played together.”
— Adapted from project writing for Squall and The Autotopographers, 2019
Squall, 2019
Snow globes, steel votive stand. 60 × 60 × 82 in. Sculpture that can be performed by the artist. Exhibited in The Autotopographers at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, March 23–September 15, 2019. Photography: James Prinz.
“In September 2018, I presented Sauver les meubles as a solo booth at EXPO CHICAGO. I had been selected from my cohort of ten BOLT residents to represent the Chicago Artists Coalition at the fair, and suddenly I had an entire booth at one of the city’s major international art events. The exhibition brought together four new sculptures and marked an important leap in the scale and visibility of my practice. The presentation was accompanied by an interview with curator Anastasia Karpova Tinari, in which we discussed collecting, material culture, childhood, sexuality, and the personal histories embedded in the objects I was using. Coming only a few months after my first major solo exhibition, it felt like things were moving very quickly.”
— Adapted from Ben LaRose’s interview with Anastasia Karpova Tinari for EXPO CHICAGO, 2018
Sauver les meubles, 2018
Solo presentation at EXPO Chicago, presented by the Chicago Artists Coalition, September 2018. Photography: James Prinz.
“The Promise evoked several images: an archway, a portal, or neo-classical architecture. In the context of the exhibition it was commissioned for, I wanted to use these forms to reflect on the appealing yet often unattainable promise that comes with immigration and citizenship. The sculpture shines and evokes a sense of grandeur and achievement, but remains anchored by the very real, immovable cement blocks.
When I took the piece down to ship it to another exhibition, it struck me that it had taken on another form. The golden promise had collapsed into a pile of parts, ready for another kind of journey, hoping to make it there safely.”
— Adapted from Ben LaRose’s exhibition statement for The Promise, 2018
The Promise, 2018
Cement, chain, decorative metalwork, gold leaf, laundry basket, mirror, paint, trophies, trophy towers and wooden shelves. 120 × 14 × 118 in.
Exhibited at 6018|North, Lubeznik Center for the Arts and the Chicago Cultural Center. Photography: James Prinz.
SAIC Graduate Viewbook, Fall 2018
Featured artist profile in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Graduate Viewbook.
Coquille #1, 2018
7-color screenprint, 11 × 15 in. Edition of 14, signed.
Published as part of the New Printmaker Collection by the Chicago Artists Coalition and Spudnik Press.
“D” for Diane, 2018
Found objects, fiber and wood; dash plaques mounted on beveled wood pieces.
30 × 36 × 16 in. Commissioned for the Browne Goodwin Collection.
Studio shelves, 2018
Documentation made while moving out of the BOLT residency studios at the Chicago Artists Coalition. Dust accumulated around objects stored on the shelves, registering their silhouettes as they were removed—almost like photographic exposures or cyanotypes.
Dot Your I’s with Hearts, 2018
Installation views of the solo exhibition at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago, April 27–May 17, 2018. Photography: James Prinz.
Dear Frédéric and Dot Your I’s with Hearts, 2018
Postcard and program takeaway produced as part of Dot Your I’s with Hearts, with photographs from the exhibition opening at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago, April 2018.
“In 2017, I was selected as one of ten artists to participate in the BOLT Residency at the Chicago Artists Coalition. The yearlong residency gave me a studio, a community of artists, and an opportunity to develop a new body of work. It culminated in Dot your i’s with Hearts, my first major solo exhibition, in which I began digging more explicitly into boyhood and family, particularly my correspondence with my late little cousin. BOLT became an important turning point for me professionally. From our cohort of ten artists, I was selected to represent the Chicago Artists Coalition with a solo presentation at EXPO Chicago 2018. BOLT gave me my first real foothold in Chicago’s professional art community.”
— Adapted from Ben LaRose’s career writings and BOLT Residency materials, 2017–18