by Caroline Hirsch
To create his astral “mosaics” (his word), Michael Benson surfs the vast NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) image archives, most of which have raw files ready for download, then spends countless hours combining single images into composite portraits of celestial bodies. The other night I skated over to the opening of Benson’s “Beyond” exhibition, at Hasted Kraeutler, and the results are awe-inspiring; their simplicity and clarity belie the time it takes to stitch each image together.