Ben Frost is a visual artist whose work seeks to challenge contemporary norms and values of Western culture and society. Frost’s visual work places common iconic images from advertising, entertainment, and politics into startling juxtapositions that are often confrontational and controversial. He currently lives and works in Melbourne, Australia, and exhibits locally and internationally.
The title 'Ben Frost is Dead' comes from his 2000 solo exhibition of the same name where he faked his own death. Invitations were created in the form of a newspaper funeral notice and distributed nationwide. Newspapers labelled him 'sick' and his actions 'perverse,' when, by complete coincidence, the invitations went out on the same day a local art patron died.
The collaborative exhibition 'Colossus' with Roderick Bunter in 2000 at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane featured a 12m x 2.4m mural by the artists, called 'Where Do You Want To Go Today?'. The mural featured controversial imagery, including masturbating cartoon characters amongst a pastiche of advertising icons as a statement on society's continuing loss of innocence. In the final week of the exhibition, a disgruntled viewer entered the gallery and slashed one of the paintings with a knife. Police requested the exhibition be closed. In 2002, he exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney as part of 'Primavera: Young Artists Under 35', where the same painting - 'Where do You Want To Go Today?' - was exhibited. Police again requested the painting be removed due to public concern.
