I, Pencil
October 15th - November 12th, 2022
I, Pencil, the newest work from interdisciplinary artist, Ben Hagari. Transforming the space with compelling large-scale video projection, lavish soundscapes, illuminated sculpture, and lustrous text, Hagrai delivers an enchanting timed sequence of immersive storytelling interventions, with a single pencil as the subject.
The exhibition continues Hagari’s exploration of perception and optical illusions by re-inserting obsolete technologies into the contemporary conceptual and aesthetic landscape. In a time of handwriting’s rapid disappearance, this work begs the necessity of creating things by hand, as well as idiosyncratic production, and work born from dreams.
Blurring the lines between human and things, object and its user, live action, and animation, the film opens with a human sinking in graphite, beginning the fabrication process. In a later scene, the pencil rises by itself to embody the gestures of an invisible hand. A girl discovers the anthropomorphized pencil and a dance begins.
The name comes from a short story by Leonard E. Read published in 1958, written from the point of view of a pencil, detailing the complexity of its own creation.
Shot between the 100-year-old Musgrave Pencil Company, the last remaining pencil manufacturer in Pencil City U.S.A (Shelbyville, Tennessee), and The Boiler, both site's rich textures and sounds are captured by cinematographer Boaz Freund and musician Matt Bauder.
About the Artist
Ben Hagari (b. 1981, Tel Aviv) lives in New York and works collaboratively to create experimental films and moving image installations. His work produces from wide-ranging research in the fields of literature, theater, art history, and scientific curiosities. Hagari has exhibited internationally, including the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Fundación Calosa, Mexico; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; SculptureCenter, New York; KIT, Düsseldorf; Whitechapel Gallery, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow; and High Line Art, New York.
This exhibition was made possible by:
