Ben Rivers' Phantoms at Triennale Milano

Ben Rivers' exhibition 'Phantoms' opened at Triennale Milano in 2017, a collaboration between Camden Arts Centre (London), Kunstverein in Hamburg, and The Renaissance Society in Chicago. The show occupies the Impluvium, a cubic volume likened to a Platonic cave, featuring Rivers' 16mm films from over fifteen years. Works include 'Old Dark House' (2003), 'Origin of the Species' (2008), and 'A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness' (2013) with Ben Russell. 'The Shape of Things' (2016) projects objects from Harvard Art Museums' ethnographic collection—a Byzantine hermaphrodite sculpture and a Neolithic Chinese anthropomorphic jug—accompanied by poet William Bronk reading his work. 'Phantoms of a Libertine' (2012), inspired by Marcel Broodthaers' 'Voyage on the North Sea' (1974), was filmed in the home of a recently deceased friend. 'Things' (2014) offers an intimate diary of Rivers' own home, filled with collected books, images, objects, and sounds.