Ben Cain, Tina Gverović
Ben Cain (b.1975, Leeds) works across a range of media and materials, and with a variety of other people, most of the time being interested in these things: the effects of new conditions of labour - in particular the contemporary alignment of leisure with work- on the body and upon notions of the self, as articulated through objects, materials and actions. Conflating exercise and work in the studious leisure-pleasure spaces of museums and galleries that occupy the sites of former heavy-industry, Ben often makes installations that incorporate polite and pretty forms of kettling, and objects and clothing that record and anticipate obsolete or abstract labour, alongside other forms that refer to craft-based production, skill, pride, and dignity. The work that objects and viewers (understood as interchangeable roles) do is a recurring theme, and a love/hate relationship with ‘Participation’ continues to be at the core of Ben’s practice.
Solo exhibitions of Cain’s work have been presented at institutions such as Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen, Wiels Centre for Contemporary Art in Brussels, and Zagreb’s Museum of Modern Art. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Tate Modern, Busan Biennale Korea, Manifesta 9, South London Gallery, London’s National Portrait Gallery, Belgrade’s Museum of Modern Art, and Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu, among other venues, and he has recently completed public sculpture (with Tina Gverović) for Reading university Campus UK. Cain also works as a theatre scenography designer and teaches Fine Art at Central Saint Martins London, London Metropolitan University and WHW Academy Zagreb, and co-runs a long term exchange programme with The Academy of Fine Art in Zagreb Croatia.
Tina Gverović works with installation, drawing, painting, sound, text and video. Her work – often in the form of immersive, disorientating installations – explores the economy and history of materials. One of the key questions in her work is where lies the potential of the political vision and re-invention?
She finished MA at Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and holds a doctorate from Middlesex University in London. Her work was recently shown as part of the 57thVenice Biennial, Corner DC, WKV Stuttgart, Museum of Arts and Crafts Hamburg, Trigon – Post Environment in Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst & Medien Graz, Suzhou Documents – Biennial, Tate Modern, and Busan Biennial. Her public art commission conceived in collaboration with Ben Cain was recently installed in The University of Reading Campus. She held teaching posts at Camberwell College of Arts, Slade School of Arts, Dutch Art Institute Roaming Academy, and WHW Academy in Zagreb.