At the Edge of Work

Solo exhibition spread over 3 large rooms incorporating installating, sculpture, audio works, print media, and critical text.

Inc. Interview for Croatian National Television.

BEN CAIN
At the Edge of Work
August 8th - September 29th 2024
curator: Jasminka Babić

Ben Cain is a multidisciplinary British artist whose practice focuses on the effects of changing work conditions on the contemporary individual. In the post-industrial era, human labour has transformed on many levels, and Cain specifically examines how these changes influence the human body, self-identity, and interpersonal relationships. His artistic work is characterised by a broad spectrum of media, encompassing installation, sculpture, photography, video, performance, text, and sound. In his first solo exhibition in Split, titled “At the Edge of Work,” he turns the exhibition space into a “pseudo-factory” using sculptural objects, spatial installations, textile works, and sound. The specific layout does not provide concrete depictions of post-work but invites the audience to reconsider what work means, looks like, and feels like in today’s world and, ultimately, explores the potential of the artist / artistic work in generating insights into key aspects of contemporary society.

In this respect, textile works that refer to traditional work clothes are especially interesting. The artist himself explains the context: “When I was an art student in the North of England in the 90’s some of my tutors wore faded cobalt blue French worker’s jackets. No doubt attracted by cut, colour, comfort, high-quality long-lasting material, but also perhaps because of a desire to align with ‘the worker’, and therefore with the idea of art being a physical and/or intellectual process that represents a kind of ‘labour’ which might be quotidian, non-rarefied, part of everyday spaces of making and producing that constitute, or more importantly invent or realise the most basic requirements of society?”

• https://galum.hr/izlozbe/detalj/ben-cain