Masks as a Vehicle for Feminist Transformation

Suzanne BentonInternational metal sculptormask maker/performance artist and workshop leader

Suzanne Benton’s First Feminist Mask Workshop 1969

Women’s Interart Workshops, 1969-1972

with feminist artists, dancers, and writers, at Westbeth, NYC

First Mask Tale Performance

at Lincoln Center, 1971

First The Marchers

Lincoln Center, 1971 Inaugural outdoor performance,

Mask Tale, Sarah and Hagar

with Suzanne Benton & Judith Weiss

The Audience

Lincoln Center Inaugural outdoor performance Sarah and Hagar Suzanne Benton & Judith

Weiss, 1971

Times

Marching in NYC, 1972Celebrating the Second Coming of the Great

Goddess & Suzanne’s Sculpture

Exhibition at Caravan House Gallery,

NYC, 1972

• from then on, performing solo

Lilith

Sarah

Lilith (mask and tale)She left the garden of Eden rather than be subservient to Adam

Jephthah’s Daughter

Miram Mask

Jael

Job’s Wife

Suzanne welding, 1974

Artpark, Lewiston, NY 1975

Throne of the Sunqueen The Sunqueen

Artpark:

Incubator of big

ideas. Why

not, I asked myself, make art round the

world?

Tokyo, Japan, 1976

Mothersun Mirror Mask

Korean Mask Dancer Shaman

Suzanne Benton’s steel masks, made in Korea, 1976

Yang Ban, Somu (Suzanne’s daughter Janet), and Yangban’s Wife

Korean Masks, 1976Ancient One, Somu, The General

The Heavenly Maiden

Non Gae

Non Gae performances1981, 2010

Non Gae Mark Twain library, 2010

Emille Bell

Mutang (Shaman)

Performance, Korean Cultural Center, NYC,

1982

Bali, 1976

Shefali Moitra shared the Chitrangoda story, from the Indian epic, the Mahabarata with

Suzanne in 1976

The Bengali Bride

Bombay, 1977

Jerusalem with Ted and Janet King Saul Mask

(Ted, wearing Suzanne’s Susan B. Anthony pewter

keepsake)

Spreading Prehistoric WingsAthens, Greece,

1977

Uribadan Masque Players performingEologa and the Market Women

with Suzanne Benton’s Journey MasksIbaden, Nigeria: 1977

Perdita, The

Winter’s Tale

Shakespeare SeriesOberlin College

Winter Term

Lady Macbeth Hermione

Carnival, Koln, West Germany, 1983

Hypolita, Midsummer Night’s Dream

In Koln, Holocaust Seriesexhibit at Willy Fuchs

Dusseldorf

Hagen

Loki’s Prey

Ursula, Holocaust Series, 1984

Demeter & Persephone workshop, Colorado College, USA

working with Survivor and Ursula Holocaust Masks, 1985

Workshops, England, Greece

1977 and on

Medusa Workshop, Atsitsa, Greece, 1985

Suzanne performingAriadne and Theseus, Phaestos, Crete, 1985

TimesAriadne

performance

HP Garcia Gallery,NY

C2010

Suzanne performingDemeter & Persephoneat Eleusis,

Greece

1985

Crisis (Ayodyha), cast bronze

India Fulbright 1992-3

Dhokra Bronze Cast Mask, created in Kolkata, India,

Fulbright, 1992

Dhokra Casting Workshop with village

artisans and professional sculptors from throughout India (and Suzanne) 1992

Dhokra, lost wax casting masks just out of the fire

Joshadhora Bachshi, Chair of Women’s Studies

& my lecture students, Jadavpur University

Kolkata India, Fulbright year 1992

Sculptor Meera Mukajee, Kolkata

Suzanne Benton welding Khala Bhavan, Santiniketan,

West BengalFulbright, 1993

Anarkali

Ceramic Mask Story WorkshopKhala Bhavan, West Bengal, India

Student Masks

Village of Gargaria, West Bengal, India

1993

Masking with village

children,West Bengal,

India

Shantali Village Women’s Festival

West Bengal, India, 1993

Mask Story Workshop with Ragpicker’s Children Kalitaramahila Samity, Kolkata, India, 1993

Mask Making/Performing Workshop, Fashion Institute of Technology,

New Delhi, India, 1993

Student masks

Suzanne welding at the Paa Ya Pa Art Center, Nairobi, Kenya, 1993

Makonde Spirit

Makonde

Suzanne’s welding studio tablePa Yaa Pa Art Center, Nairobi

Kenyan workshop performers with Suzanne’s masks, 1993

Mask Story Workshop, Nairobi, Kenya

5 day Mask Story WorkshopImbasini, Tanzania, 1993

Mask Tale The Soya Bean

Bagamoya Dance Company, Tanzania

Biblical Queen Esther

Welding Studio, Dhaka University, Bangladesh, 1995

Hindi Film Star Chandraleka

Bangladesh, 1995

Chitrangoda II

ChitrangodaKalidas Puja, 2012

Bangladesh, 1995

Nepali Traditional Mask Performance

Weekend mask/story workshop rural Nepali women training as ombudsmen,

1995

Katmandu, Nepal, 1995

Apsara’s Prince

Performing From the Grave of Martyrs, 2010

Photo, Peter Holm

Lahore, Pakistan1995

Mask Tale National College of

ArtLahore, Pakistan

Bosnia, mask & story with women and youth, 1996

Persephone II

Teen workshop. Travnik, Bosnia

Greek Myth, 3rd graders, White Plains, NY

Westminster School, Simsbury, CT, 2008

Mark Twain Library, 2010Redding, CT

Mark Twain Library, 2010Redding, CT

Isabella Freedman Retreat

Center, 2010

Miriam Mask Tale, paper mask

Persephone performance 2010 Pierre Maynard Gallery, Cambridge, MA

Creating a porcelain mask, Santiniketan, West Bengal India

2011

Performing with porcelain mask, Khala Bhavan, Santiniketan, West Bengal India, 2011

New welding studio created for my workshop and legacy of Professor

Hamiduzzaman

Steel transport, Old Dhaka, Bangladesh

Workshop students

Vishnu, 2011

Nasima Haque Mitue, my former 1995 student, now sculpture faculty member, Dhaka University, Bangladesh2011

Hena Akter Memorial Mask TaleAmerican Center, Delhi, India, 2011

NGO SHARE workshopMumbai 2011

MumbaiMunicipal School assisted

by NGOCHIP

Masks & Storytelling with children

of prostitutes and women saved from trafficking with support

from NGO PRERANA and American Center

Mumbai, 2011

Hena Akter Memorial Mask Tale, 2012

Suzanne Benton is a native New Yorker who has shared her many-faceted art for over 30 years and in 29 countries. Exhibiting widely (150 solo shows and representation in museum and private collections worldwide), she’s a highly recognized metal mask maker and mask performance artist, printmaker, painter, lecturer, and workshop leader.

A trans-culturalist and feminist pioneer based in the States, her venues stretch from New York City to villages in remote parts of Africa, India, and Nepal, and to philosophy and education portals from Calcutta to Cambridge. A former Fulbright Scholar (India), and recipient of many grants and artist residencies including many hostings by the cultural arm US Embassies, she's traveled worldwide since 1976, sharing her work in Bali, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, England, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yugoslavia.

Author of The Art of Welded Sculpture and numerous articles, she is and has been listed in Who’s Who in America, Who's Who of American Women, Who’s Who in American Art, International Who's Who of Business and Professional Women, and Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, Edited by Barbara Love, 2006.