In its September issue, Art+Auction compiled a list of the 25 most collectible midcareer artists working today. This month, ARTINFO will publish one installment from the feature per day. Click here to read Art+Auction editor-in-chief Eric Bryant’s introduction to the list.
Matthew Benedict | b. 1968 | United States
Ever since the 2014 unveiling of a commissioned four-panel mural depicting scenes of Tribeca throughout the years in the back barroom of the trendy Smyth hotel, Benedict has enjoyed new visibility and interest among buyers, says dealer Ted Bonin of New York’s Alexander and Bonin gallery. Some are even requesting studies for the mural, executed in gouache on archival bookbinder’s board, which range in price from $7,000 to $12,000. The Connecticut-born, Brooklyn-based artist, who has attracted a strong collector base in the United States and Europe, works in a variety of media, from sculpture—mostly assemblages of found objects—to drawings, photographs, embroideries, and paintings. “He often uses literature as a starting point, but he ends with an examination of American subculture,” says Bonin, citing the artist’s consideration of the history of masons through a reading of Moby-Dick, which resulted in his gouache-on-panel triptych Moby-Dick at Breakfast, 2009. Benedict’s themes, he adds, tend to develop over time and oscillate between paintings and objects. In 1993 the artist produced a work called Gumshoe. B. 1906, D. 1967, comprising the possessions of a fictional detective. Many of the same props reappeared in a 2000 painting, Durant. Then, in 2012, Benedict revisited these works, creating a wall relief using similar items titled Silent Still Life. Such objects range in price from $15,000 to $30,000. Five years ago, Benedict’s paintings sold for $8,000 to $35,000; today they vary between $15,000 and $50,000, reflecting a slow and steady appreciation. Next spring, Stene Projects in Stockholm will present a solo show of works by the artist, who is co-represented by the Zurich gallery Mai 36.
