bio

Stephen Blaise and Catherine Camille Cushman are New York based artists who explore humans’ most basic desires through new media, video installations, objects, photographs and text. Their work examines the idea that boundaries are permeable and that reality has a formal structure that cannot be definitively known.

In 2001, Stephen Blaise lectured for MoMA on transcending representation, referencing his photographic portrait series ‘Non-Objective Others’. In 2003, Blaise was invited to exhibit his ‘Non-Objective Others’ at the TED Conference in Monterey, California.

2005, Stephen Blaise and Catherine Cushman began collaborating with video and co-founded moving image collective F16x9 and the world’s first ‘Motion Media Magazine’, filling a missing presence in the world of media and culture - Conde Nast. As pioneers who combined experimental narratives, art, fashion and moving image, Blaise and Cushman used the open frame of the video editorial to explore social constructs and ideas such as causality, identity, perception, limitation and loss.

In 2008, Blaise and Cushman were given a solo exhibition at the FOAM Museum Amsterdam, which consisted of a video installation with corresponding stills. In 2008, the artists collaborated with Liam Gillick, a chosen finalist for the Vincent Van Gogh Award. Their video ‘Everything Good Goes’, exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 2009, the artists large-scale video projections filled the atrium walls of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. That same year, Blaise and Cushman collaborated with the artist Mathieu Briand, creating a film and performance as part of Performa 2009. In January of 2010, three of the artist’s films were included as part of a group show titled ‘Utopia’ at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. Other credits include Centre Pompidou, Paris, Festival d’Hyeres Villa Noailles, France, ICA London, the Noovo Festival in Santiago de Compostela Spain, an exhibition hosted by the city of Milan and the 9th Biennial in Lyon, France.

In 2022, German academic scholor Gunner Schmidt published the book “Astetik des Oralen”. He devotes an entire chapter and the cover to the artist’s video ‘Cake’. Professor Schmidt critiques and makes comparisons to Lewis Carroll, Freud, Roald Dahl, Bunuel and the film ‘La Grand Bouffe’ amongst others.

In addition to video, Blaise and Cushman continue to explore photography itself, it’s changing context and it’s effect on our identities. Utilizing comparative typologies, the artists examine cultural rituals, gender roles and behavioral patterns found within the frame. Further, Blaise and Cushman deconstruct the ‘photographic act’ of the photographer and the ‘presentation of self’ by the subject during the photographic process.