‘BEN DUAX: Lon air an Fheur’ see:<\/strong> BEN DUAX PRESS RELEASE – HYACINTH<\/a><\/p>\n FRUITS are falling – like bombs. a little bit of Instagram Direct Message \/ Q & A . . . with BEN DUAX:<\/strong> <\/p>\n Ben Duax: Lon Air An Fheur . . is Gaelic for ‘luncheon on the grass’.<\/p>\n Nancy Smith: unspoken thought bubble \/ it’s so interesting to see some ancient linguistic roots \/ Fleur is flower in French \/ dejuener is late breakfast\/brunch \/ so, picnic among the flowers \/ picnic on the grass . . but not, such a happy time, & above all, nowhere close to the ‘stylistic’ narrative – re the French Impressionists, who were<\/strong> so radical in their own time. Ben Duax: ‘But the idea<\/strong> is that the work is engaged with the question of reproduction<\/strong> or versimilitude<\/strong>, and the significance of the Gaelic language is because I live in Scotland, N: who are the people who run HYANCINTH, & how do you know them ?<\/p>\n Ben Duax: The gallery is owned by a guy named WILLIAM NANCE.<\/p>\n N: How do you know him if you are based in Scotland ? <\/p>\n BD: I know him from when I lived in New York before, I used to have a studio at SLEEP CENTER in Chinatown. <\/p>\n N: oh, I know the place, it had an ‘advanced’ digital – light animation projection \/ sculpture focus, BD: I am also in the next<\/strong> group show at HYANCINTH – that opens FRI MARCH 11th<\/strong>.<\/p>\n a few notes for the show’s PRESS RELEASE:<\/strong><\/p>\n ~”Enough scholarly attention paid to the canvases of Ben Daux would probably uncover a plethora of art-historical <\/strong> signifiers. Flashes of Matisse’s sunbathers or the weighty carcasses of Francis Bacon and Schiele’s skeletal linearity may appear in Duax’s compositions alongside the destructive<\/strong> adolescent<\/strong> gestures of Appel or Jorn.” <\/p>\n ~”the title itself translates as the famed ‘Le Dejuener sur L’herbe’ expressed in Gaelic<\/strong>, a nearly disused language salvaged from the brink of obscurity<\/strong> . . . ~”a multitude of imaging techniques . . including traditional photography, risograph duplications, digital wand scans, and reactive dye prints . . are often overlaid by conventional painting.” ~”(the show) . . presents a data-sphere<\/strong> of painterly gestures that necessitate a more grandiose project than simply digging up the . . . (academic) art historic references \/ ~”Originally from the Bay Area in California<\/strong>, BEN DUAX works out of New York, and Glasgow. a ‘Dejuener sur l’herbe’ . . for our times \/ so, are we on the – eve of global destruction ? up thru . . . SUN MARCH 6, 2022 ‘BEN DUAX: Lon air an Fheur’ Jan 19 – March 6, 2022 HYACINTH, 179 Canal St., #48, Tribeca, NYC 10013 HRS: FRI, SAT & SUN: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44814"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44847,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44814\/revisions\/44847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJan 19 – March 6, 2022
\nHYACINTH<\/a>, 179 Canal St., #48, Tribeca, NYC 10013
\nHRS: FRI, SAT & SUN: 12 pm – 6 pm<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/BEN-DUAX-at-HYACINTH.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\na dysfunctional destruction of pattern \/ shatters the visual plane.
\na furtive smoke of explosion erupts, and rot seeps out from behind smiling skins & over-ripe berries.
\ncigarettes are the ‘cynical’ . . tip-off.
\nwell, at least they aren’t \/ “strange fruit – hanging from the trees” \/
\ni.e. African American lynchings . . during Jim Crow.
\nbut close enough, just in another language & still signaling . . human distress, at the hands, of others.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Ben-Duax-painting-2022.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nBEN DUAX, ‘Sunflowers & Pineapple Sage II’, 2022.
\nacrylic on reactive dye canvas \/ 17.75 x 14 in.<\/strong>
\nimage via Instagram @hyacinthgallery<\/a><\/p>\n
\nguess, I’m just a history\/literary\/source nerd \/ maybe, because I grew up in Montreal, Quebec \/ French Canada.<\/p>\n
\nand this kind of trashy<\/strong> casual picnic for me . . [signifies] an autobiographical context.”<\/p>\n
\ndeep, deep down in a windowless, super dark Chinatown basement, on Monroe St., near Essex Flowers.<\/p>\n
\nInspired by the bilingual<\/strong> subway and parking signage of Glasgow’s ancient <\/strong> streets . . .
\n(this show) meanders the curiously mundane, beautiful, and sometimes absurd icons that populate this, (still standing !! historic – Nancy) urban architecture.”<\/p>\n
\n(contemporary \/ digital impressionism<\/strong> ? – Nancy)<\/p>\n
\nit poses an opportunity to reinvent <\/strong> the principles of taste, manners, and culture embedded in the visual history of modern life – itself suddenly <\/strong> on the threshold of an unimaginable<\/strong> degree of digital immersion.”
\n(and, real life \/ destruction – Nancy) <\/p>\n
\nhe graduated with a BFA from Hunter College, NYC \/ in Painting, and an MFA from the University of Glasgow in Fine Art.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/hyacinth-gallery-logo-instagram.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>
\ncheck out:<\/strong> HYACINTH GALLERY on Instagram @hyacinthgallery<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artloversnewyork.com\/zine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Ben-Duax-on-Instagram-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>
\ncheck out:<\/strong> BEN DUAX on Instagram @ben_duax<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"