Description: BARTON LIDICÉ BENEŠ (1942-2012) Stolen Image. Unique mixed media shadow box assemblage, featuring a color reproduction photograph of a man's torso, showcasing his unzipped sweatshirt and undone jacket, as well as two 35mm Ektachrome color slide mounts, one empty and positioned over a cutout section of the image, and the other below, with the cutout pecs inserted within the mount, the overall sheet measuring 267x203 mm; 10½x8 inches, the artist's frame 311x229x32 mm; 12¼x9¼x1¼, with Beneš' signature, title, and date in pencil on sheet recto. 1980.
Footnote: Barton Lidicé Beneš was a sculptor and visual artist who worked in materials that he described as artifacts from everyday life. He became well-known for his collection and installations of relics ranging from cremation ashes to shredded money to bodiliy fluids to found objects to celebrity ephemera. Calling these reliquaries "Museums," Beneš' own apartment also became a larger-scale installation of its own, holding memento mori. A veteran of the AIDS crisis, Beneš' work blended activism, poetry, and resistance, forcing a confrontation with death and fears of transmission. His most controversial work was titled Lethal Weapons and featured objects such as a toy gun, darks, and other found objects filled with his own blood.