Service Conversation Felix Benton Erling Kagge

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FELIX BENTON WITH ERLING KAGGE
Silence, Walking, and Painting

Tuesday, September 1, 2026, 10:00 AM EST 4:00 PM CET, Google Meets • 40min

Felix Benton (Brooklyn, NY): I read your book on silence ^[1]. I grew up in Marfa, Texas, and then I went to school in central Switzerland, grew up ski touring, hiking in the mountains, and climbing, and I never really connected how much that headspace of sitting in silence and being with oneself and sharing just an experience with nature shaped the way that I make paintings and how I see. Reading your book, at every single chapter, I was like, “Oh yeah, that totally is about painting as much as it’s about being anywhere else.” I wanted to talk about the intersection of those two spaces with you.
You talk about how we're sort of born explorers, and I think that's a trope that gets thrown out at artists too. People say, “Oh, we're born artists.” And I was wondering: what does it mean for you to say we are born with these things, and holding onto them? I think in painting it becomes a practice, right? It becomes a daily routine and something you do over and over again. Do you think about exploring in the same way? Do you think about it as a daily practice?

ERLING KAGGE (Norway): That's a very, very valid point. And I think the reason why artists too get fascinated by this idea about silence is because silence is about who you are. It's about getting to know yourself better.

FB: Mm-hmm.

EK: While noise is, of course, about everything else–it's also about running away from the one you are. Noise is almost always easier than silence. Silence could be very uncomfortable. And I think that, again, if you're going to be a great artist, you need to relate to your own inner silence and not look at everyone else. You should definitely look at art history and get inspired, but then you have to listen to your own inner silence. That's the key, I think, to make great art.

I think you don't need to practice it every day, but it's not a hobby. It's a lifestyle. So for me, it's curiosity, to wonder, to let wonder be an engine in life. It's all about reading great literature, looking at art, hiking in the forest, being in the mountains, sailing the oceans. Try to live a rich life.

FB: I think, for me, it ties in directly to looking — this idea of silence. I really resonated in the book when you talk about how you weren't able to see snow originally when you started walking on your expedition, and then, after days and days, finally started noticing the different colors, shapes, and ridges. I think that is very true about painting. As much as my practice is about actually painting, it's very much about sitting and looking. I'd say I spend eighty percent of the time just staring at them.

EK: My mother told me when I was a kid, I complained that I was bored, and my mother said, “You know, it's healthy to be bored every now and then.” And I thought she was bullshitting me for years. But today I see that she was right.

FB: My dad had similar expressions. I would say the same thing, and then he would say, “Only boring people are bored.” And he would just push me back into myself.

EK: Today, in general, parents are looking too much after their kids. Of course you can't give kids too much love, but you can tell them too much about what they're going to do. You can put too many of your own ambitions on your kid. I don't think that's a good idea. It's very good to climb trees and be able to climb down the trees, and sometimes they fall off, and it's painful. I think that's very healthy.

FB: I agree. I think that's also part of what I mean by exploration — letting yourself figure things out. Painting has sort of an obvious conclusion in how you present the image, right? So it has a practice, but it's very much individual, and it's like a process of me in the studio of discovery. And I think that that process has a lot of overlaps with exploring and going on a walk. The best part about going on a walk is how I always end up surprised. I see something I'm not expecting to see. And the best part about making a painting is that it surprises you. Even though you make it, it does something that you can't quite explain.

But in showing work, there's a responsibility in bringing that experience to somebody that's obviously intangible, right? There's no way for me to say what the process of making a painting was like, but at least you have the physical evidence on the wall that they can now interact with and have their own experience with. But in exploring, the feeling and the experience is so personal — what does it mean to you to then bring that to the world?

EK: When I started out doing expeditions, it was very much an egocentric thing. I had my own kind of motivation. I didn't do it to help the world be a better place to be. But on the other hand, I definitely didn't want the world to be a worse place to be. Whatever you do in life, it either gets worse or it gets better.
But then, as I did some expeditions, I started to understand that it could mean quite a bit to other people as well. I could tell people things they hadn't heard before, and it could be enlightening, it could be inspiring. Other people get inspired because I write about nature, the importance of relating to nature, about curiosity, about wondering. So then I understood that I could actually change the world a little bit, at least.
Even a mouse can eat an elephant if it takes small portions at a time. So, yes, that's one of the reasons I started to write books, about silence and walking ^[2], and the philosophy of exploring, because they come from my heart. So in one way it's a responsibility, although I don't think it would have been immoral not to do it. But it's been very good for me, and I hope it brings good to others as well. This makes my life more meaningful. And of course, that's what we really would eventually like to have — a meaningful life.

FB: I think similarly about painting. I think that the limitation of both is interesting to me — that they are personal — they are kind of selfish, inherently, that they are just things that you undertake. But sharing that — hoping maybe that that can have a greater impact — is something I find comforting.

I think a lot about technology right now. It's seeping into every part of what we do. I think painting is very interesting to me because it does the opposite. It might be more important than ever because it holds complexity instead of attacking you.

Its limitations are its greatest asset. You have to come to with it. You have to engage in spending time with it. It's not something that grabs you, and it's only available for you if you make yourself available for it.

EK: I share your belief that, for instance, painting has some dimensions that technology-influenced art doesn't have. So, yeah, I follow you on it.

FB: I think there's almost like a contradiction in the position that you have to hold. It's like how you say walking makes you gain time instead of lose time. I think that you have to both pop the bubble and exist in the bubble. You have to make things slower in order to make them bigger and more expansive. I think these decisions are weirdly hard to find, even though they're so simple.

I think if you take the easy route, you can feel it. I'm very wary of tricks in my practice, because there are things you find over and over again where you're like, “Oh, when I do this with paint, it performs in a way that's very handsome or seductive.” But whenever I find myself there for too long, I'm like, “Oh, this has become a crutch. This is the easy path.”

So I almost always have to push through and do the thing that is unexpected. It's not about succeeding — it's maybe more about constantly failing.

EK: I think you should always have this kind of inner self-confidence. Not all the time, but I think it's, like, have some self-confidence that keeps you up. But you should also, at the same time, always or almost always be doubtful.
Everything, can get better. Everything can become more experience, more interesting. And everything can get worse. So it's all about degrees. It never gets to one hundred, and never goes to zero. So always, like, everything is somewhere between zero point one and ninety-nine point nine. All the degrees.

FB: I agree. And I think that kind of idea of magic, 'cause there's a certain magic in that perspective — that anything is possible — and that is something that I feel in nature so much.

My family is originally from Estonia, and my mother's father immigrated. His mother was very much a believer in the pagan gods, and she believed that kids could communicate with nature. They could hear what was being said.

It's definitely something I've held onto — this idea that magic is maybe more exciting than not having it there, so why not have it?

In the process of making the painting, sort of continuously it is unsuccessful. And I think that you have to sort of sit in this belief that all conditions are perfect conditions and be like, “Oh, that is the path forward.” In the same way that the magic is everywhere — it's easy to get stuck in this system of doubt and binaries. But I think if you believe in the total magic, there's always a way through and a better thing.

EK: The best thing for me, when I'm in nature, is not to think too much. Because when you think, you're thinking about the past, or you're thinking about the future. It's very difficult to think and be in the present at the same time. It's not impossible, but it's difficult.
But all this thinking is necessary, a major part of life, but it's also a kind of noise. So, to be in nature, but also in silence, is about letting the moment be big enough to be able to be present in your own life. And then, of course, when you're really present in your own life, that feels like an eternity. So this present moment, like this, and eternity are kind of quite similar.
It's also hard to describe by words, because, as you said earlier, words have their own limitations. So that's one reason why I enjoy painting — because if you could have written it, you could have rather made a short story or something. So, to be able to be present in your own life, that's a great feeling.

FB: I agree. I think that language is nice in that it reduces complexity, but I've always loved painting because it presents it and says, “Here it is.”

I think that to be present is to be the most expansive. When I spend so much time looking at the paintings and thinking about them and overanalyzing them, I always get up and make the wrong decision. After making the wrong call, I find that I'm able to enter that space of just being present and reactive.

And then I can finally just be in the work.

EK: At one stage, you need to stop.

FB: I'm trying to do this more and more. As soon as I'm bored of something while I'm painting it, I'm trying to stop right there. I think that often the body knows. There's kind of a perfect internal knowledge of where to stop.

And I do think that's also true of exploring. We had one expedition when I was in high school where there was just this feeling that we should turn around, and then a huge storm rolled in afterwards. It's just — weird, like, the body knows that it's time to go home, it's time to stop painting the lines.

EK: Sometimes the body knows, and sometimes experience tells you what's going to happen, and other times you're just lucky. I think part of life, obviously, is luck — luck comes with experience, luck comes with good preparation.

FB: But I also do believe that you make your own conditions for luck.

EK: Absolutely. This much you make yourself. This tiny bit here is true luck. If you win the lotto or whatever, that's true luck.

FB: Yeah. Are there any trips that you'd like to do again, or are you just always kind of moving forward?

EK: In terms of expeditions, I like to do new stuff. But I was in the high Arctic, in Spitsbergen, last week. I took my daughters up there and did some great hiking. So I spend time in the Arctic. I spend time in the Norwegian mountains. So, in that sense, the world remains unexplored, because you are changing all the time, the world is changing all the time, and so in that sense, everything is new all the time.

FB: In painting, it's always new because I'm the one making the painting, right? I've never made that painting before. But you could make the same argument that I've never climbed that mountain before, and that exploration is maybe as great.

EK: In one way, you're never first. Always someone has done something before you.

So now it's much more about exploring my own mind, and exploring other people's minds, and being curious about what's going on in the world.

FB: Were you always interested in art?

EK: I can tell you almost exactly when it started. I was thirteen years old. We went to Louisiana, this really beautiful museum in Copenhagen. In the basement, they had this installation by Richard Long — just a bunch of gray rocks in a circle on the floor. And me and my cousin, we thought, “This is the most ridiculous thing we've ever seen.”
But then it was growing on me, the days and weeks and months, and eventually years afterwards. I remained curious about it. Why are people appreciating such a stupid piece? But then, eventually, I understood that I was wrong.

FB: Growing up in Marfa, you're obviously surrounded by Judd's legacy everywhere. I remember a similar interaction with the art. Being young and seeing the sculptures, I was like, “These are so dumb. There's nothing here, why are you fighting for them?” But then, not much after, like twelve, maybe a little bit longer, I was like, “No, they're really important.”

And I don't think I knew anything other than people saying that they were good at that time. But it's just — it's definitely something that shaped me. Even that position, having to make that decision and hold it.

EK: You have to believe. That's the thing. If you don't believe in Donald Judd's art, it's bullshit. It doesn't make sense at all. It's like everything else in life, like with love. If you don't believe in love, and believe love is the greatest force in the world, love is meaningless.
So you have to believe in something, or, as I said, you don't have to believe in anything, but then your life will become quite poor.

FB: I think it's the same as that idea of magic. If the fairies are in the forest, they're in the forest, and if they're not, then your life is less. It's a choice you get to make more than anything else. And I think that art reminds you that you can make that choice over and over again, and hopefully helps you out of not making it.

Notes:
1 Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise, trans. Becky L. Crook (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017).
2 Erling Kagge, Walking: One Step at a Time, trans. Becky L. Crook (New York: Pantheon Books, 2019).

Felix Benton (b. 2000, El Paso, TX) is a painter working in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2023, with a concentration in Nature, Culture, and Sustainability Studies. Benton has presented solo exhibitions at Do Right Hall in Marfa, Texas, and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York, and most recently presented a two-person exhibition at Stump Gallery in Brooklyn. He has participated in group exhibitions throughout Texas, New York, and Rhode Island, and has served as assistant curator at Ballroom Marfa.

Erling Kagge (born January 15, 1963) is a Norwegian explorer, author, publisher, philosopher, and contemporary art collector best known as the first person in history to reach the "three poles"—the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest—on foot.

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