Galerie Lara Vincy.

On the occasion of this ninth one-man exhibition in the Galerie Lara Vincy, Ben has worked on a recurring theme in his work, culture:

 

Here are some passages cut and pasted from the “Culture” rubrique
in my Newsletter that I have been sending to my friends since 1996
I call these passages “my cultural itchings”
I have not set them out by date
Therefore this choice can be seen as the result of happenstance  
They are there to illustrate my show

Ben, November 2013


CULTURE CULTURE
There are two different kinds of beautiful today
There is the emotional beautiful (Wow! That is so beautiful!)
and the beautiful because we just know it is beautiful
with dates and a history

CULTURE
This morning
art is in a fog
lost on the scale of Art
It no longer knows on what rung it is perched
before it was easy: something new removed the previous one
it was just a question of quietly moving upwards
but this morning
like in quantum science
the scales have become infinite
one goes up or down it is all the same
Art has vanished inside that Duchampian “Everything is art”

CULTURE
What’s wrong with all those jerks who puff themselves up with the quote from Filliou
“Art is what makes life more interesting than art”   
As for me I say the opposite
Life is what makes art more interesting than life
and that is just as true
so why the shit does nobody quote me?

CULTURE ET BEN
you must know that
the material I work on is the only material
that counts in art
the only material that exists
the only material that imprisons you:
The ego
CONTEMPORARY ART
Faced with the outpourings from the virtual, computer technology, the numerical, etc
will the artists who paint vanish in the same way that the dinosaurs vanished?

CULTURE
Too many famous people
One must remember all those names
Impossible to remember who is who

CULTURE
Too much media
Too many words
Too many hidden meanings
Too many egos
Too much diffuse power
Too much of everything

CULTURE
Art is certificate.
Everyone wants certificates,
Certificates of certificates
Certificates of dedications
Certificates of a kick in the ass, etc…

CULTURE
Everybody sends me DVDs
and videos to look at
Thanks
but nobody sends me
the time to look at them

CULTURE
Lizène said at the bar in Blois
“We can’t do something
without knocking over something else”

CULTURE AGAINST INTERNET
Internet scores points
and it even transforms culture

CULTURE
What is culture?  
Culture contains the day-to-day
Culture contains communication
Culture contains the need for well-being
Culture contains the memory of who we are
Culture contains the ego
Culture contains the memory of the past
Culture is adding something new to the past
Therefore when we remove from a people
Its language, we remove its culture  
Nothing else to say

CULTURE (ART MARKET)
A piece of advice from Mère Denis
Sell your Régent
Sell your La Galla
Sell your Jeff Koons
Sell your César
Sell your Pinaud
Sell your Mayaux
Sell everything and
Buy some Ben and some Panighi