"Goings On About Town: Manfredi Beninati", in The New Yorker, 13 March 2007

A collection of candy-colored paintings veil landscapes and familiar-seeming interiors with drips, agate stripes, and aurora-borealis glows. They’re dreamy and lovely, like looking at the world through a rainbow prism. In the front, an installation depicts what seems to be a therapist’s office gone to seed, with years of repressed desperation finally popping out. The surrounding set is perfectly plausible (radiator, worn paperbacks on a shelf, swivelly office chairs, wallpaper), but the desk has been taken over by a turretted sandcastle, with an empty wine bottle and a full ashtray nearby. Wonder abounds.


Installation view of Manfredi Beninati's "Fruits from an Ocean nearby"