BIO

Ben Kinsley is a multidisciplinary artist who creates site-specific responses to particular situations, often through collaboration and playful exchange with local residents. His projects have ranged from conducting an orchestra of screaming humans, directing a maritime-themed play for boaters on a lake in Maine, organizing a shadow play in the middle of the California High Desert, and choreographing a neighborhood intervention into Google Street View.

Ben’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, galleries, and film festivals and is included in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. He received his BFA in 2005 from the Cleveland Institute of Art, is a 2006 alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and received his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. He spent the 2008-2009 academic year in Iceland participating in various artist residencies around the country.

Ben is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska.

EDUCATION

2008 MFA / Carnegie Mellon University
2005 BFA / The Cleveland Institute of Art
2004 Fachhochschule Schwäbisch Hall - University of Applied Sciences, Germany


SELECTED EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTS / SCREENINGS

2010 23rd Stuttgarter Filmwinter: Festival for Expanded Media, Online/Offline Exhibition, Stuttgart, Germany
2009 Frenemies, Front Room Gallery, Cleveland, OH
2009 Manipulating Reality, Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Florence, Italy
2009 Street With A View @ Agency for Small Claims, Bureau for Open Culture, CCAD, Columbus, OH
2009 The Thirteenth Day: Ben Kinsley & Jessica Langley, Skaftfell Art Center, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland
2009 PUBLIC/PRIVATE, Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA
2008 Sonic Youth, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2008 A Moratorium on Make-Believe, Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
2008 Illustrations of Catastrophe and Remote Times, Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
2008 For You, For Me, From Me, Flux Space, Philadelphia, PA
2007 9th Annual Black Sheep Puppet Festival, Brewhouse, Pittsburgh, PA
2007 TRANSIT, Nagoya Zokei University of Art and Design, Japan
2007 Media Flow Part 5, Fluctuating Images Contemporary Media Art, Stuttgart, Germany
2007 The Singer Sucks, But The Band... (curated by Erick Michaud), Sunday L.E.S. New York, NY
2007 trooz (curated by Art Office), Show Cave, Los Angeles, CA
2007 Vision Request, A-Z West, Joshua Tree, CA
2007 Everything Must Go!, Future Tenant Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
2007 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
2006 In_Tension, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA
2006 Radio SKC, Studentski Kulturni Centar, Belgrade, Serbia
2006 BRING IT!, Future Tenant Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
2006 HOMO LUDENS: Yip Yap Yelp & Holler, Brewhouse Theater, Pittsburgh, PA
2006 NEMO Film Festival, Paris, France
2006 Don't Tell Your Head: Ben Kinsley / Steve Probert, Hyacinth Gallery, Cleveland, OH
2005 NEO Show, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
2005 Ingenuity: A Festival of Art & Technology, Cleveland, OH
2005 BFA Thesis Exhibition, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH
2005 43rd Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI


GRANTS / AWARDS

2010 Smack Mellon "2010 Hot Pick"
2009 Runner-Up Prize, Cleveland Public Art See Also Commission
2009 Nes Artist Stipend, Cultural Committee of Northwestern Iceland
2008 Sprout Fund Seed Award, Pittsburgh, PA
2008 CMU Graduate Student Association GuSH Grant
2006 Skowhegan Brown Foundation Fellowship
2006 Skowhegan Matching Scholarship, Carnegie Mellon University
2005 Dominion Prize: Best of Show, NEO Show, Cleveland Museum of Art
2005 First Agnes Gund Award for International Travel, Cleveland Institute of Art

RESIDENCIES

2010 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE
2009 Skaftfell Artist Residency, Seyðisfirði, Iceland
2008 Nes Artist Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland
2008 SÍM Artist Residency, Reykjavík, Iceland
2006 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME

TALKS / PRESENTATIONS

2009 Office of Collective Play, Bureau For Open Culture, CCAD, Columbus, Ohio
2009 Lost & Found, Theatrum Anatomicum, Waag Society, Amsterdam, NL


COLLECTIONS

The Cleveland Museum of Art
Robert M. Kaye
Leonard Steinbach


SELECTED MEDIA & PRESS

"Street With A View O Cuando El Observado Es Google". Yorokobu. pp. 24-25. Feb. 2010
"Manipulating Reality" Exhibition Catalogue. The Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina. Sept. 2009
“Giving Google Maps a Heck of a View”. Washington Post. 5 Feb. 2009
"Highlights from 2008". Rhizome.org. 16 Jan. 2009
"Artists Stage Street Scenes to Lurk in Google Maps". Associated Press. 12 Nov. 2008
"Google Makes World Stage for Sampsonia Way". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 12 Nov. 2008
"There Goes the Neighborhood". Art21 Blog. 7 Nov. 2008
"Street With A View". Rhizome.org. 7 Nov. 2008
"Sonic Youth".CIRCA Issue 125. Autumn 2008
"Reel Good Show". The Metro (Dublin). 14 July 2008
“The Pretenders". Pittsburgh City Paper, 16-23 April 2008
"Come Play With Me". Philadelphia Weekly, 23-29 Jan. 2008
“Mattress Factory’s Gestures Gain Energy With A Few Firsts”. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 20 Jan. 2008
“Vision Request”. Beautiful/Decay. August 2007