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Ben Wolf Noam

@wolf_noam

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Artist LA/NY
@vernongardens project space & drive-in

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WORK PORTRAITS PORTRAIT WORK BY BEN WOLF NOAM IS OUT! AND BEN WOLF NOAM’ SHOW: WORK PORTRAITS IS ON VIEW UNTIL MARCH 8TH AT THE JOURNAL GALLERY L.A.

In the expanded field of contemporary art, it is common to consider “work” and “pleasure” as one and the same thing. In this sense, it is easy to see how “labor” rapidly doubles as “labor of love,” the subtext being that doing what one enjoys is invaluable no matter what. Inhabiting this dichotomy, Ben Noam’s book Work Portraits Portrait Work is both a visual exploration of work in the cultural field and a statement of personal artistic intentions. Presenting 60 painted portraits of friends from the art world and culture in general, the book is a compendium of artists, musicians, chefs, filmmakers, actors, writers, and academics depicted while laboring in their chosen workplaces. At the same time, it is also a conceptual reflection on the complex nature of work in the cultural field, the relationship between subjectivity and collectivity, self-representation and belonging. The outcome is a surprisingly heartwarming object, somehow suggesting that work in the arts is never solely an individual affair. As Dean Kissick writes in one of the four texts specifically commisioned for the book— with Laura Adler, Gabriel Winant, and Ashley Mears —“art is a communal project.” Furthermore, Work Portraits Portrait Work serves as a record of a specific time and place—most portraits depict people close to Noam himself, often in studios, apartments, cafés—but it does so embodying a fantasy of such time and place. The subjects of the paintings become a community, and this community becomes a character in Ben’s narrative about what making art today might signify: a representation of what artistic representation could look like.

WORK PORTRAITS PORTRAIT WORK
160 PAGES
245 × 340 MM
60 COLOUR PLATES
ENGLISH
PUBLISHED BY ZOLO PRESS

CONTRIBUTIONS BY:
ASHLEY MEARS
DEAN KISSICK
GABRIEL WINANT
LAURA ADLER

@WOLF_NOAM
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#DEANKISSICK
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@DIEKEUREPRINTING
@THEJOURNALGALLERY
#THEJOURNALGALLERY taken in The Journal Gallery Los Angeles by @wolf_noam

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2 years ago

Good Morning by @wolf_noam

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Had the honor and privilege of making a ceramic ketubah for @maialafortezza and @adamfriedland s wedding this past weekend. Where many brave souls crossed seas, bogs and flooded roads in the middle of an epic storm to celebrate their love. Good times! by @wolf_noam

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Ben Noam Wolf (@wolf_noam), Memory Maps, 2023–2026, glazed stoneware, dimensions variable.

Ben Noam Wolf is an American artist based in New York and Connecticut. He holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Noam has exhibited internationally, with shows at The Journal Gallery, The Breeder Gallery, and the Museo di Capodimonte, alongside performance commissions from MoMA PS1 and Night Gallery. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, and ARTnews.

An installation of ceramic vessels from an ongoing series called Memory Maps—subjective maps with no beginning or end —features glazed drawings wrapping around large, coiled, hand-built pots. The maps, without beginning or end, echo the island's form: space encircled by water, bounded yet brimming with lived experience. Together, these maps tell a story of subjective experience.

The installation is currently on view at the De Milly Armoury.

Curated by:
Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos @kopse_ligo
Loukia Thomopoulou @loukiat
Anissa Touati @anissatowati

©️Bill Stamatopoulos (photo 2,3,4,5)
©️Ministry of Culture (@minculturegr) / Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese (@efadodecanese)

#BCKeramics #BCK2026 #Rhodes by @wolf_noam

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Meanwhile on Rhodes: “Where the Day Starts,” the second Biennale of Contemporary Keramics (BCK @bckeramics ) brings together 42 artists from 18 countries across some of the extraordinary historic sites of Rhodes’ Medieval City - on view until 31 October.

I have always had a particular penchant for ceramics - for this most ancient of materials, earth transformed by hand and fire, and for the extraordinary freedom with which contemporary artists continue to reinvent it.

Recently, at Rob Pruitt’s Flea Market project on Hydra, I met Ben Noam Wolf (@wolf_noam ) whose work I was delighted to discover is included in BCK.

His ongoing series Memory Maps (2023–2026) consists of large, hand-built coiled vessels covered in glazed drawings that function as subjective maps - without beginning or end. Restaurants, friends’ apartments, parties, concerts, hardware stores, chance encounters and seemingly insignificant moments become coordinates of a lived life.

I particularly love this idea: that the more personal a map becomes, the more universally we can recognise ourselves within it. Memory turns into geography - and the vessel itself becomes both landscape and archive.

Ben Noam Wolf
Memory Maps, 2023–2026
glazed stoneware, dimensions variable
currently on view at the De Milly Armoury, Rhodes

Curated by Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos, Loukia Thomopoulou and Anissa Touati.

@bckeramics @wolf_noam

#BCKeramics #BCK2026 #Rhodes #ContemporaryCeramics #matthiasarndtrecommends taken in Rhodes, Greece by @wolf_noam

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“Harvard Square Memory Map” commission just finished . This was a really fun vessel to make. So many formative experiences in Harvard square, I could have spent another year on this, growing up in Cambridge. My first job at Darwin’s, the juice boy, first kiss outside of camp, first time getting punched in the nose, first tags, first break up on the bench outside bertuccis. Drinks at Charlie’s haircuts at Lenny’s, late night slice at Pinocchio’s , magazines at tower, record shopping at newbury comics, getting papers at the hempist, head of the Charles , getting kicked out of finals club for being a townie. Bob slates markers , cafe Algiers Turkish coffees Etc. to infinity . Most of the places I loved are gone but hopefully they live on in our minds and hearts (pots.) by @wolf_noam

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2 months ago

Some more vibey photos of my Memory Map installation for the Biennial of Contemporary Keramics in Old Town Rhodes. 📷Bill Stamatopoulos by @wolf_noam

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Hydra Memory Map, the last of the Greek island memory map vessels (until next time...). I’ve been coming to Hydra since 2015. That first summer, every hotel was booked so Marco Depaolis and I stayed at the very top of town with a 97 year old man also named Marco who rented out rooms. Right before the town dissolves into animal farms and monasteries, because it’s too high up for normal people. Every day we would huff and puff back and forth to the port, and see that same 97 year old man, smoking, drinking coffees in the early morning or beers at midnight with his comrades. One hundred stairs a day will keep you young forever.

I usually would time my trips to Hydra for the Slaughter house openings—Kara Walker’s, Andra, Shrigley, Nari, Paul Chan. etc. They were my favorite art event, the most democratic, where anyone who made it to this distant island on that particular Monday after Basel was a welcome guest. There were dinners, parties, cocktails but everyone always ended up at Pirate bar on the port eventually. Jeff Koons getting teased by his children for taking tequila shots and wanting to have a big night out, Currin towering, Cattelan always cracking jokes. You’d never know who you would run into on the port, but it was always fun and even the most crotchety art people couldn’t help but be in a good mood.

Most of my past memory maps don’t include figures, but so many of my memories on the island are anchored by people so this one has a lot of them, mostly dancing or chatting or singing karaoke. Kon got free meals every night so the restaurant owner could pretend he was Leonard Cohen’s son. My brother’s yachting bachelor party. Over the years, all the visitors who made the sunsets sweet and the sunrises sweeter. You can’t really experience the Memory Map fully unless you see it in person so I am just gonna shout out some of the people on it. Laura hiking, Bree singing, Conor + Cally, Myriam, Our Brother Davids and their Bros, Lola, Calliope + Kyveli, Jannis + Stam, Artemis, Nadia, Andreas + Atalanti, Ariana, Lucile, Avis, Stathis, Emma + Zevin, Mario, Connor, Alberto, Mike, Casey + Emma, Amy, Makis, Maria, George, Hugo and Seb + Ali. Too many to count. taken in The Pirate Bar, Hydra Greece by @wolf_noam

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3 months ago

Details from the Memory Map installation @bckeramics in the old town of Rhodes. Cycladics, Delos, Sifnos, Mykonos, Paros, Milos, Antiparos. Each pot uses cartography to tell a story of the island over time. Many of the things and places depicted are gone now but they live on in our memories. The map wraps around with no beginning, surrounded by water, a landscape both bounded and endless. by @wolf_noam

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@bckeramics opened last weekend in the old city of Rhodes. I showed a group of memory map vessels, the culmination of the past decade exploring the Cycladic islands of Greece. Maps wrapping around vessels with no beginning or end. Greek antiquity taught me how a pot can tell a story. Thank you to @stavrosperakis @connor_kay @elinabelou @calpav @laoudera for making this project possible. Thank you to the curators @anissatowati @loukiat and @kopse_ligo for including me in this amazing show. 📷 @ccaravatellis taken in Rhodes Old Town by @wolf_noam

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4 months ago

Made this drawing for a strange and incredible story about wine thieves in @wsj out today, can someone pick me up a copy at the news stand?! Thanks @victoriarosselli and james fanelli by @wolf_noam

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mom and dad in 2016 by @wolf_noam

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