Michael Benson (filmmaker)
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Michael Benson (born March 31, 1962) is an American artist, writer, filmmaker, and exhibitions producer.


Career


Journalism

After receiving a BA in English with a minor in photography at the
State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...
at Albany in 1984, Benson worked as a news assistant and occasional contributor to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', but he left the paper after two years to pursue a career as a freelance journalist. In 1986, he began a series of articles for ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' covering the opening of the Soviet underground rock music scene during the so-called
glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...
("openness") period, which were published either with his own photographs or with images by noted rock photographer
Anton Corbijn Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard (; born 20 May 1955) is a Dutch photographer, film director and music video director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2,Pitman, Joanna"The silent partner"' ...
. Also in the mid-1980s, he wrote an hour-long documentary for
MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
on Russian rock titled ''Tell Tchaikovsky the News''. During this period, Benson worked occasionally as a photojournalist for the
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...
news agency’s
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
bureau, landing front page shots in ''
The International Herald Tribune ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' among other publications. As a writer, Benson subsequently contributed articles on a diversity of topics to such magazines as ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', '' Smithsonian'', ''
Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
'', ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', ''
Interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
'', and ''Rolling Stone'', as well as such newspapers as ''The New York Times'', ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', and ''The International Herald Tribune'', including many
op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
s. His 2003 article for ''The New Yorker'' on
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's mission to
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...
,
What Galileo Saw
, was selected for inclusion in the
anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
''
The Best American Science Writing ''The Best American Science Writing'' was a yearly anthology of popular science articles published in the United States, which commenced publication in 2000. The book series was published by Ecco Press (HarperCollins) and concluded after the 2012 i ...
2004'' and, in 2010, in ''The Best of Best American Science Writing'' (both
Ecco Ecco or ECCO may refer to: Art and entertainment * ''Ecco the Dolphin'' (series), a series of action-adventure science fiction video games ** ''Ecco the Dolphin'', a 1992 video game * Ecco (''Gotham''), a TV series character Organizations ...
/
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
). His July 13, 2008 ''Washington Post'' weekend ''Outlook'' section piece titled
Send it Somewhere Special
advocated retrofitting the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...
to convert it into an interplanetary spacecraft. The article proved to be controversial, and prompted heated reactions, with many dismissing Benson's ideas as impractical while others supported the concept. In a previous op-ed, this one titled
Can the Heavens Wait?
and published by ''The New York Times'' on January 31, 2004, Benson criticized NASA for its decision, announced only days previously, not to service the
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
. He advocated the immediate reinstatement of a
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...
servicing mission, calling Hubble "surely the most important instrument in modern astronomy." After a sustained campaign by many astronomers, engineers, science writers, editorialists, and representatives of the public at large, a Space Shuttle mission to service the Hubble was in fact eventually reinstated. That mission,
STS-125 STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the last solo flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis''. The launch of ...
, took place in May 2009 and restored the space telescope for service until at least 2014 but probably many more years. More recently, Benson contributed a multi-media editorial to the ''Sunday Review'' section of ''The New York Times'' in an August 2013. Titled
Gorgeous-Glimpses of Calamity
" it used still images, video clips crafted from satellite images, and textual accompaniment to drive home the fact that many disturbing signs of
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
can be seen clearly from Earth's orbit, including continent-wide jungle burn-offs,
superstorm A superstorm is a large, unusually-occurring, destructive storm without another distinct meteorological classification, such as hurricane or blizzard. Origin and usage Before the early 1990s, the phrases " storm of the century" or "perfect st ...
s, and dense palls of smog obscuring the view of significant parts of
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. The article remained on the paper's "Most Emailed" list for two days.


Film

In 1989, Benson entered NYU Graduate Film School, which he followed in 1991 by moving to
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
, then still a republic of a rapidly imploding
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, to make the feature documentary film ''
Predictions of Fire ''Predictions of Fire '' or ''Prerokbe ognja'' is a 1996 documentary film by American filmmaker Michael Benson about Neue Slowenische Kunst. Synopsis In 1991, SR Slovenia's violent secession from SFR Yugoslavia marked the first spark in the Yu ...
'' (1995). He lived in Slovenia for 16 years, finally moving back to New York in the summer of 2007. ''Predictions of Fire'' premiered at the Sundance and
Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
s and won several best documentary awards internationally, including the
National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
's Best Documentary Feature award at the 1996
Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...
. The NFB jury released a statement with the award: "Predictions of Fire is intellectual dynamite. It explodes the icons and myths of
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
. Out of the shattered history of Slovenia, this film constructs a new way of looking at art, politics, and religion." Despite many good reviews, including in
Variety
' and the
LA Times
', the film, which also played at New York’s prestigious
Film Forum Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater at 209 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget. Ka ...
art cinema, didn't escape criticism. In hi
review
Stephen Holden Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic. Biography Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...
of ''The New York Times'' said the film "throws out such a dense profusion of ideas that it sometimes loses track of itself." Benson later finished the TV broadcast version of a feature-length global
road movie A road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home on a road trip, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. Road movies often depict travel in the hinterlands, with the films exploring the theme of alienatio ...
titled ''More Places Forever'', which was shown on the German-French channel
ZDF/Arte Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, pl ...
in November 2008. The film, a co-production between ZDF/Arte,
TV Slovenia Radiotelevizija Slovenija ( en, Radio-Television of Slovenia) – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija (or simply RTV within Slovenia) – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization. Based in Ljubljana, it has regional broadcastin ...
, and Benson's production company Kinetikon Pictures, features a visit to Arthur C. Clarke in
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, among many other scenes shot in locations as diverse as
Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
,
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
,
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, and
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
. From 2007-2010, Benson worked with director
Terrence Malick Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American filmmaker. His films include '' Days of Heaven'' (1978), '' The Thin Red Line'' (1998), for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenp ...
to help produce space and cosmology sequences for Malick's ''
The Tree of Life ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', which drew in part from Benson's book and exhibition projects. The film, which explored the
origins of the universe Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe. Overview Scientific theories In astronomy, cosmogony refers to the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used i ...
and the beginning of life on Earth as well as its ultimate fate, won the
Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...
at the
2011 Cannes Film Festival The 64th Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 22 May 2011. American actor Robert De Niro served as the president of the jury for the main competition and French filmmaker Michel Gondry headed the jury for the short film competition. South Ko ...
. Benson's work was also incorporated in Chilean documentary film director
Patricio Guzmán Patricio Guzmán Lozanes (born August 11, 1941) is a Chilean documentary film director. He is most known for his films ''The Battle of Chile'' (1975-1979) and ''Salvador Allende'' (2004). Career Guzmán also teaches documentary film classes in ...
's 2011 film ''
Nostalgia for the Light ''Nostalgia for the Light'' ( es, Nostalgia de la luz) is a 2010 documentary film by Patricio Guzmán to address the lasting impacts of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Guzmán focuses on the similarities between astronomers researching humanity's ...
'', which presented similarities between astronomers researching deep cosmological time and the struggle of Chileans still searching for the remains of relatives executed during
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
's
dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship are ...
.


Writing

Benson's book ''Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes'' (
Harry N. Abrams Abrams, formerly Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (HNA), is an American publisher of art and illustrated books, children's books, and stationery. The enterprise is a subsidiary of the French publisher La Martinière Groupe. Run by President and CEO Michael ...
, 2003; paperback edition 2008; children's edition 2009), features about 300 highly reprocessed photographs of the planets and moons of the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...
, as well as the sun. The book, which has an introduction by noted science fiction writer and space visionary Arthur C. Clarke and afterword by the award-winning American writer of non-fiction
Lawrence Weschler Lawrence Weschler (born 1952) is an author of works of creative nonfiction. A graduate of Cowell College of the University of California, Santa Cruz (1974), Weschler was for over twenty years (1981–2002) a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'', w ...
, culled shots from five decades of space probe images and repurposed them, positioning them as a chapter in the history of photography and the landscape. It won First Prize for Design, Special Trade General Books Category at the 2004 New York Book Fair and was called "An aesthetic revelation… a spectacular melding of science and art…" (''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'') and a "pioneering and magnificent collection of pictures… sublimely exhilarating…" (''
Booklist ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is av ...
''). ''Beyond'' was printed in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. From April 2007 to April 2008, an exhibition of large-scale photographic prints based on the book was displayed at the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
in New York, and was described as a “stunning series of pictures” (''The New York Times'') and an “extraordinary exhibition” (''
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
''). An exhibition of ''Beyond'' images was also toured around the United States by SITES, the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
's Traveling Exhibitions Service, from 2008-2011. Benson's second book, ''Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle'', was published by Abrams Books in October 2009. A companion volume to ''Beyond'', ''Far Out'' covers such deep space phenomena as
nebula A nebula ('cloud' or 'fog' in Latin; pl. nebulae, nebulæ or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regio ...
e,
star cluster Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clust ...
s, galaxies, and
galaxy cluster A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. They are the second-l ...
s. It also contains a series of short "sidebar" stories that trace various epochs of Earth history and link those periods to the main astronomical subjects of the books. These shorter stories are tied to the astronomical phenomena being depicted according to the light travel time between the Earth and the deep space objects in question. Reviewing the book for ''The New York Times'',
Dennis Overbye Dennis Overbye (born June 2, 1944, in Seattle, Washington) is a science writer specializing in physics and cosmology and is the cosmic affairs correspondent for ''The New York Times''. Biography Overbye received his B.S. in physics from M.I.T.— ...
wrote "Actually 'exquisite' does not really do justice to the aesthetic and literary merits of the book, published in the fall... You can sit and look through this book for hours and never be bored by the shapes, colors and textures into which cosmic creation can arrange itself, or you can actually read the accompanying learned essays. Mr. Benson's prose is up to its visual surroundings, no mean feat." Benson's third book, ''Planetfall: New Solar System Visions'', came out in October 2012. German and Japanese editions were published in the fall of 2013. His fourth book for Abrams, ''Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time'', received front-page coverage in "The New York Times" when it was released in October 2014. ''Cosmigraphics'' surveys 4,000 years of attempts to represent the universe graphically. In April 2018,
Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...
published Benson's nonfiction book '. He is a Fellow of the
New York Institute for the Humanities The New York Institute for the Humanities (NYIH) is an academic organization founded by Richard Sennett in 1976 to promote the exchange of ideas between academics, writers, and the general public. The NYIH regularly holds seminars open to the publi ...
.


Exhibitions

Following the success of ''Predictions of Fire'', by the mid-1990s, Benson had begun using the internet to harvest photographs from deep space missions. It was a procedure he wrote about for ''The Atlantic Monthly'' magazine in an article titled "A Space in Time" in 2002, which eventually led to a contract with Harry N. Abrams, the New York publisher of illustrated books. In discussing his work reprocessing raw image data from planetary science archives to produce composite landscapes, Benson has said that he is working to show that "the visual legacy of more than 50 years of interplanetary exploration constitutes a significant new chapter in the history of photography." On May 26, 2010, the largest-scale ''Beyond'' exhibition opened in the Art Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution's
National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...
in Washington, D.C. Featuring 148 prints spread across seven rooms, ''Beyond: Visions of Our Solar System'' was the largest collection of planetary
landscape photography Landscape photography shows the spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes ...
ever assembled in one place. The exhibition, which ran for a year, was described as "amazing" by ''The Washington Post''. However, reviewer
Blake Gopnik Blake Gopnik (born 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American art critic who has lived in New York City since 2011. He previously spent a decade as chief art critic of ''The Washington Post'', prior to which he was an arts editor and criti ...
also expressed some reservations about the show. "Maybe my problem is that the space flight, the science, the getting-there and getting-the-shot are missing from these photos," he wrote. "These photographs are gorgeous, and the worlds they show are wondrous. But I miss the scientists' grid-marks, the fractures in their panoramas, the artifacts of their filters, that might hint at how these strange worlds came to be before my eyes. My eyes see too much evident art in these photographs for my mind not to imagine that there's tons of artifice behind them." In the fall of 2010, Benson accepted an invitation to be represented by a New York gallery, Hasted Kraeutler on West 24th Street. He has since had two well-received solo shows in the gallery, which went out of business in 2015. Following his February–March 2011 show, photography critic
Vicki Goldberg Vicki Goldberg is an American photography critic, author, and photo historian based in New Hampshire, United States. She has written books and articles on photography and History of photography, its social history. Biography Born in St. Louis, M ...
wrote that "Some of the most beautiful and important photographs ever taken turn out to be images of outer space... So it is with a shiver of awe that we view Michael Benson's large, digitally composed photographs based on pictures captured by robotic space probes." (''
ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countri ...
'') Benson is now represented in the UK by London's
Flowers Gallery The Flowers Galleries are two galleries in London (on Cork Street in the West End, and in Shoreditch in the East End) and a third in the Chelsea district of New York City. The three galleries represent over 60 artists. History The first F ...
and its managing director,
Matthew Flowers Matthew Flowers (born 1956) is a British contemporary art dealer based in London and New York. He is the managing director of Flowers Gallery. Throughout his career he has been on boards and committees of international art fairs and arts instituti ...
. On January 22, Benson's large exhibition of planetary landscapes, "Otherworlds: Visions of Our Solar System," opened in the
Jerwood Gallery The Hastings Contemporary is a museum of contemporary British art located on The Stade in Hastings, East Sussex and is a not-for-profit organisation. The gallery opened in March 2012 as the Jerwood Gallery and cost £4m to build. The gallery c ...
of the
Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...
in London. Featuring a new ambient composition by
Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
, the show features 77 digital
chromogenic print A chromogenic print, also known as a C-print or C-type print, a silver halide print, or a dye coupler print, is a photographic print made from a color negative, transparency or digital image, and developed using a chromogenic process. They are co ...
s of extraterrestrial vistas. After closing in London on May 15, "Otherworlds" will move to the
Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...
in Vienna for the summer of 2016. Michael Benson is currently working with a scanning
electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
at the
Center for Bits and Atoms The Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) was established in 2001 in the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is currently run by Neil Gershenfeld. This cross-disciplinary center broadly looks at the intersection of information ...
at the
MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
and at the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a research-intensive medical school located in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein operates as an independent degree-granting institution as part of t ...
in New York on a project called "Nanocosmos".


References


External links



Michael Benson's website
New York Times review of Benson's 2012 book PlanetfallPhoto District News Interview with Michael Benson in October 2012
* ttps://variety.com/1996/film/reviews/predictions-of-fire-1200444845/ Emanuel Levy's 1996 Variety review of Benson's film Predictions of Firebr>Press release by Natural History Museum London for Benson's show Otherworlds
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Michael Living people American documentary filmmakers 1962 births