Wow, anybody know this guy?

[rockm]

I ran across this article in "The New Yorker" magazine from a couple of days ago. It's very weird. Artist apparently uses live bonsai and bronze sculpture to construct compositions (that apparently go for $5,000-$100,000). The "bonsai guys won't talk to me" stuff he spouts seems to be bullshit and he offers no proof, just says he's offered to work for $20 an hour to clean up, sent goodies to Jim Doyle and taken Ryan Neal's Zoom class..

The Bernini of Bonsai

Benjamin Keating tours an exhibition of his sculptures, which combine bronzework with tiny trees, and recounts how he found an in with a secretive bonsai guy by bribing him with tomato sauce and fresh pasta.

www.newyorker.com

These are the best photos of his work I can find online--

Tripoli Gallery

tripoligallery.com

Then there's this :

"All these trees are replaceable,” he continued. “So if this piece is sixteen thousand dollars, if you bought the work and the tree didn’t survive I would send you three or four different trees and you could pick one and we would come and reinstall the tree.”

Uh, thanks?

 

[MaciekA]

Often I feel like there are basically two completely separate bonsai worlds that have essentially nothing in common with one another except for a two syllable word

1. Bonsai - what most people on this forum are interested in. Trees we develop over long periods of time
2. Disposable Bonsai - Trees with questionable potting that die indoors and rarely live long. Some can be transformed into Bonsai with a capital B.

By his own words, this man's work potentially adds to the second set. Kind of a shame. Combining bronze sculpture with competent long-term bonsai would be very cool though.

 

[Cajunrider]

I ran across this article in "The New Yorker" magazine from a couple of days ago. It's very weird. Artist apparently uses live bonsai and bronze sculpture to construct compositions (that apparently go for $5,000-$100,000). The "bonsai guys won't talk to me" stuff he spouts seems to be bullshit and he offers no proof, just says he's offered to work for $20 an hour to clean up, sent goodies to Jim Doyle and taken Ryan Neal's Zoom class..

The Bernini of Bonsai

Benjamin Keating tours an exhibition of his sculptures, which combine bronzework with tiny trees, and recounts how he found an in with a secretive bonsai guy by bribing him with tomato sauce and fresh pasta.

www.newyorker.com

These are the best photos of his work I can find online--

Tripoli Gallery

tripoligallery.com

Then there's this :

"All these trees are replaceable,” he continued. “So if this piece is sixteen thousand dollars, if you bought the work and the tree didn’t survive I would send you three or four different trees and you could pick one and we would come and reinstall the tree.”

Uh, thanks?

With his attitude, no wonder the "bonsai guys" don't want to talk to him.

 

[penumbra]

Well that was time wasted.

 

[rockm]

With his attitude, no wonder the "bonsai guys" don't want to talk to him.

I don't think the "bonsai guys" gave him the silent treatment. Sounds like they talked a lot to him, but this guy seems to be weaving some sort of mystical BS tale to sell sculpture to unknowing folks in the Hamptons and hipster Brooklyn. I have a very very hard time believing Jim Doyle and Andy Smith did not talk. Both are pretty sociable and will talk endlessly about bonsai.

This artist is basically selling EXTREMELY high end display tables for what look like Walmart bonsai.

 

[Dogestoevsky]

I’m usually first in line to take a dump on arrogant bastards in the art world, but the lion’s share of Keating’s sculptural work is evocative and haunting. But the whole concept of the series with tiny trees seems a slapdash appropriation of bonsai for high art spectacle. His attitude about the whole thing is pretty shitty to boot if I were Ryan Neil I wouldn’t sell to him either. It’s not an issue of money — the issue is that you don’t get to take someone else’s art and then make it your art.

 

[rockm]

Often I feel like there are basically two completely separate bonsai worlds that have essentially nothing in common with one another except for a two syllable word

1. Bonsai - what most people on this forum are interested in. Trees we develop over long periods of time
2. Disposable Bonsai - Trees with questionable potting that die indoors and rarely live long. Some can be transformed into Bonsai with a capital B.

By his own words, this man's work potentially adds to the second set. Kind of a shame. Combining bronze sculpture with competent long-term bonsai would be very cool though.

The larger "Art" community (particularly the "avante guard" brigade) has long been in love with bonsai, but have no real idea of what it entails, for the most part. Trees become only pieces of a larger composition or are sacrificed as a silly "statement." That statement or display typically costs the tree its life.

Artist Sends a Bouquet and a Bonsai to Space

What happens when you send a Bonsai tree to space? See for yourself

www.smithsonianmag.com

azuma makoto continues his futuristic 'paludarium' series of bonsai ecospheres

www.designboom.com

FWIW, bronze display elements for bonsai have been around a while. Okimono (bronze sculpture) are traditional elements in formal Japanese display. More modern applications include the angular display benches built by Ryan Neal. There are others as well.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

"All these trees are replaceable,” he continued. “So if this piece is sixteen thousand dollars, if you bought the work and the tree didn’t survive I would send you three or four different trees and you could pick one and we would come and reinstall the tree.”

Dang, sounds like the kind of people that slap down 8000 dollars for a collected 400 year old tree and have it die because they know jack about horticulture.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to talk either. That's poor humanship.

I know some celebrities do stuff like that with fish tanks and exotic animals. But at least they don't complain about zoos and conservationists.

 

[HorseloverFat]

When traditional pieces were traded amongst the wealthy (who most often had no experience or interest in horticulture beyond aesthetic), in bonsai's Japanese "HayDay"...

Didn't the pieces come with caretakers, factored into the price? Or SOMETHING like that?

(I know more of CHINESE mini-tree history)

 

[LanceMac10]

Some stuff looks familiar......

I've worked in a non-ferrous sand-casting foundry for thirty years, this junk worth about $50....scorn of the actual practice of bonsai is pretty telling.

Copyright infringement is the only thing "giving me a rise" here.....

 

[Dogestoevsky]

The work and the quotes in the article are, frankly, embarrassingly capitalist. Bonsai practitioners know why a tree a priced a certain way — but to the general public, and clearly to Keating, there’s an extra layer of high art commodity fetish.

 

[HorseloverFat]

The work and the quotes in the article are, frankly, embarrassingly capitalist. Bonsai practitioners know why a tree a priced a certain way — but to the general public, and clearly to Keating, there’s an extra layer of high art commodity fetish.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Well, I looked for a couple of this guy’s artworks. Eclectic, artsy for sure, but some folks will buy anything. As for the trees… hmm.

Benjamin Keating Studio - Benjamin Keating Studio | Bonsai | Sculptures

Ben Keating studio and foundry in New York City. Ben Keating

benjaminkeatingstudio.com

cheers
DSD sends

 

[michaelj]

Art is really subjective, and metal sculpture and casting can be pricey, so good for this artist, I guess. He's getting exposure. He clearly isn't a passionate bonsaiist, though. He's a very expensive, avant-garde metal bonsai potter.

 

[Shogun610]

another hack job .. what a surprise, ok let’s get back to sharing and working on our trees

 

[rockm]

another hack job .. what a surprise, ok let’s get back to sharing and working on our trees

FWIW, I posted this because I think it can be important to see bonsai in the wider world. What we see, isn't what others see, or value. This is an extreme example. I don't really like what's going on, but it's subjective and I'm a little ambivalent.

This is interesting because what he's doing involves many of the issues we see regularly--when is a tree "yours?" when designing it? How to you value a bonsai? Is there a responsibility to the tree after you sell or give it to someone? What's a good bonsai cost--(this may seem silly, but there seem to be people who are willing to pay ten grand for one if the stand is pretty enough...) and lastly, has anyone used metal pots ?

 

[GGB]

Jim used to keep a pile of his best dead trees laying around for this guy. I never met him personally, but Jim seemed to like him just fine

 

[dbonsaiw]

"high" art is all about pomp and circumstance. Dinner parties and cocktails. The New Yorker article didn't run for free either. In my line of work, articles in major newspapers/journals are simply a check away. (If you don't believe me, I can show you that I am the one of the nation's best ________, for no reason other than I paid for the title). You do not have to be good at what you do; you need to convince people that they need to own something of yours. And you pay third-party vendors to give you that aura. How else does someone sell a blank canvas with a dot for millions or a non-existent artwork? And many of the people buying this stuff have no opinion themselves - they are buying something as a talking point for when the other fancy pants come over. (I know because I live in this crap). Like folks buying clothes with the designer's name on it - they just want you to see the name. I took up bonsai to hide from this shit in my backyard.

 

[ZombieNick]

Artist Sends a Bouquet and a Bonsai to Space

What happens when you send a Bonsai tree to space? See for yourself

www.smithsonianmag.com

azuma makoto continues his futuristic 'paludarium' series of bonsai ecospheres

www.designboom.com

I personally enjoyed these pieces, cool cross between my love for Sci Fi and my plant hobbies. Not so much a fan of the Keating guys work. The quotes from the article are what turn me off most, it doesn't bother me so much that he is killing trees, that's his and his customer's business

 

[dbonsaiw]

Azuma Makoto is awesome. I included him as an inspiration in my "Who inspires you" thread.