Clifford Chance

David Ben White receives the Clifford Chance/University of the Arts London Sculpture Award 2012

The Clifford Chance/University of the Arts London Sculpture Award 2012 has been given to David Ben White, who completed his MA Postgraduate studies at the Chelsea College of Art in 2011. The £3000 Award also gives the selected artist the opportunity to display works in the Reception of Clifford Chance's offices at Canary Wharf for six months.

David Ben White’s projected installation at Clifford Chance’s Canary Wharf offices seeks to address and contrast the architectural language of corporate modernism with that of the decorative domestic. The artist proposes to create ‘Temples to the Domestic’, 3 related structures that appear like disembodied show-homes from a fictionalised Ideal Home Exhibition. They will include paintings within their structures, but also other hybridised domestic items. Removed from their original context and re-housed, the Temples will offer an alternative way of thinking about the spaces we live and work in.

The Clifford Chance Art Group, who selected David Ben White from a shortlist compiled by the University, commented that 'his proposal responded to the environment of our Reception in an interesting and challenging way. His invitation to viewers to participate in the work, to enter the Temples, brings a new type of interaction with Art to our building that we have not experienced before. Whilst all will be instantly recognisable from our home life, to see these objects, and their presentation, within the formalities of an office reception we expect will be unsettling and stimulating. The multitude of complex ideas that his Temples embody will intrigue the various users of the area. We cannot wait to see them installed at 10 Upper Bank Street’.

According to David Ben White 'the desire to create an environment that reflects our own individual tastes and personal histories and the depersonalised machine aesthetic of high modernism, have for me, become an interesting dynamic from which to explore. Through this exciting opportunity, I aim to continue exploring this conversation. I am excited that Clifford Chance have thrown their support behind this idea and have connected with the aspirations of the installation.'

Since graduating from Chelsea, David Ben White has exhibited in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 and organised the associated conference Modernism: A Sentimental Myth at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.