Ben Morgan-Cleveland

Ben Morgan-Cleveland is a New York-based artist who is known for co-owning the Brooklyn gallery, Real Fine Arts, which recently closed. He has exhibited his work in various galleries in the city, including Shoot the Lobster, Eli Ping Frances Perkins, 15 Orient, and Greene Naftali. He had a solo show, titled "Gallery with Words," that displayed at Kai Matsumiya in New York from March 22 through April 27, 2019.

Morgan-Cleveland has been creating sculptures using branches in a quiet part of Prospect Park. He aims to strip down the usual structures of communication and grammar to make each word stand on its own, both literally and figuratively. For this project, he didn't want to choose words that were leading in any way, but just went with what came to mind when making them. He wanted people to think of the words as objects that can break apart and fall down.

The park patrollers sometimes push over the sculptures, and Morgan-Cleveland has to make new ones. He chose this part of the park because it's peaceful and has less traffic. He enjoys being outside, using free material, and having passersby who aren't necessarily looking for art. This project is a way for him to step out of the gallery context and reach a broader audience.

Morgan-Cleveland has made a pinhole camera to take photographs of the words, which will be displayed at Kai's. He originally made the camera to document his show of his dad's collection of antique clocks. He stripped down the clocks to show the gears and movements inside, making visible the machinery that powers them. The words project is intended to be seen by a random person walking in the park, not as graffiti or populist work, but as a public display in the city.