Jesus Benavente

artist event

We Built This With The Weapons You Gave Us 
Saturday, September 11
11 am – 5 pm
Bellevue Arts Museum

The public is invited to create collaborative/interactive brick drawings in front of BAM with the artist. Bricks created by participants will be moved to Court of Light for a faux-fire pit and seating to be exhibited for the duration of Bellwether.

San Antonio, TX

Brooklyn, NY

On view at the Bellevue Arts Museum, participatory art project happening 09/11

Jesus Benavente is a 2021–2022 Smack Mellon Artist-in-Residence. He holds an MFA from Rutgers University, a BFA from the University of Texas and has attended the Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and Art Omi. His recent exhibitions and performances have occurred at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Queens International, Socrates Sculpture Park, and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

We Built This With The Weapons You Gave Us.

This work exists in two locations. The work is activated and completed by the performance of the viewer. Bricks are foundational building materials that are both essential and decorative. This past year, as protests have taken to cities of all sizes across America, there have been questions about the role bricks play in society and who gets to wield them as tools. Are bricks tools for violent protest, or a trap to tempt escalation? Are they building tools that help provide needed jobs, or are they a tool of the quiet violence of gentrification? In this work, a formidable short stack of bricks is placed outside the museum along with a table and chairs and art supplies. Participants are encouraged to create messages/art of their choosing on one of the bricks. Participants then carry their bricks into the museum and place them a designated area to create/form a communal sculpture. The act of carrying a brick into an institution instills the viewer/participant with a sense of what it means to be part of a protest and as well as the labor of work. This also helps democratize who gets to bring artwork into an art institution. What viewers/participants will take from the experience is a sense of their complicity in how they choose to take part in society.