presents:
Democracy Soup by Guy Ben-Ari
September 19, 6pm
Guy Ben Ari, (AiR '13) kicks of NARS' new public program Entrée/Encore, a series of artists’ talks, discussions, and performances which presents our artists and curators-in-residence in dialogue with the cultural community in NY and abroad. Whether it is former residency artists, like Ben Ari, who return to NARS to share how their practice has developed since and new work, or current artists presenting ongoing projects, this initiative provides artists a critical environment to experiment with or contextualize multidisciplinary practices and perspectives within the languages of art and critical socio-political concerns.
Guy Ben-Ari's talk will center around his Democracy Soup book, recently published by Meta Meta Meta LLC. This book presents 51 black and white reproductions from a series of ink drawings on vellum that the artist began in 2015. This series of works is based on imagery which originates in the visual world of politics and campaigns, through the lens of news media. Ben-Ari selects images of presidential candidates, hand gestures, televised debate backdrops, U.S. electoral maps, and official White House press material, using them as a starting point for his drawings. Vellum is a surface that inherently resists the act of mark making, repelling the ink in such a way that creates unpredictable textures and patterns. In using this technique, Ben-Ari is able to insert an element of randomness into the process of production. As the ink is applied, the figurative elements often become less legible and increasingly abstract.
Entrée/Encore is a series of artists’ talks, discussions, and performances, launched in Fall 2016, which presents our artists and curators-in-residence in dialogue with the cultural community in NY and abroad. Whether it is former residency artists who return to NARS to share how their practice has developed since and new work, or current artists presenting ongoing projects, this initiative provides artists a critical environment to experiment with or contextualize multidisciplinary practices and perspectives within the languages of art and critical socio-political concerns.