Levi Bentley: Fence Lines
Friday, September 6, 2019 – Sunday, October 13, 2019
Presented in Gallery Three

About the Exhibition

What is a fence text? Because a fence is simple and direct, the text is simple and direct. It plays at the border of unaesthetic, didactic, repetitive.

Exploring the poem as a pedagogical text, text as object, fence as text, I wanted to tease the overlap of letterforms with architecture and fence with type. Using Gerry, an alphabet formed using the shapes of gerrymandered districts created by Ben Doessel and James Lee to organize the text, I explore the alphabet of fences while drawing firm correlation to forms of political exclusion. A serious look at daily life reveals both whimsical shapes, as well as the largely unremarkable structures of social control.

About the Artist

Levi Bentley is a LAMBDA Literary Fellow, Director of Pedagogy for Blue Stoop, and artist member at Vox Populi. They teach workshops, write reviews, and make publications with friends. “Bucolic Eclogue” was released from Lamehouse Press. Chapbooks “Obstacle, Particle, Spectacle”, “&parts”, and “Stub Wilderness” were released from 89plus/LUMA Foundation, Damask Press, and Well Greased Press, respectively. Poems have appeared through Apiary, Bedfellows, BlazeVOX, Elective Affinities, Fact-Simile, Gigantic Sequins, Madhouse, Maestra Vida, Magic Pictures, Painted Bride Quarterly, Stillwater Review, The Wanderer, and a variety of other venues.

More Info: levibentley.com