BEN JONES
THE NEW DARK AGE
FEBRUARY 5 – FEBRUARY 28, 2009
76 GRAND STREET

Interdisciplinary artist Ben Jones of celebrated East Coast art collective Paper Rad presents a solo show of between-media video sculpture, light painting, and “drawing in the digital age” at Deitch Projects 76 Grand Street gallery. Entitled The New Dark Age, the exhibition explores new methods of pictoral storytelling through the drawn, projected, and sculpted line.

The exhibition consists of five components of equal importance to the artist: Ladders, Minimalism, Cartoon Drawings, Dogs, and Bricks. Buy a pizza and throw it into a dog park. Build a doghouse out of bricks. Draw cartoons to sell to street wear corporations and gorge yourself on soft pretzels. Then come to the exhibition.

Jones’ menagerie of characters, honed through years of acclaimed comic and video making, appear in The New Dark Age in fresh suits of Neon Aztec Organic Spandex. His signature 2D Flash videos in this new exhibition open up into writhing 3D sacred glowing guts. The storefront room features Mush Robos and “Travel Berries.” Neon ladders scale gallery walls, as sculptured plexiglass beings and painted neon faces appear out of the blackness. One of the four “Ben Jones Approved Patters” covers the silk-screened entryway where the welcome video prepares you for “The New Dark Age.”

Viewed through the hot pink plexi lens of new media theory, the exhibition could be seen as the best hypertexturally-noded website ever come to life. Through $200 vintage frames it is a celebration of classical architecture. To the naked eye, The New Dark Age might be a blinding glimpse at the darkly comic heart of the “internet generation gone wild”. This exhibition plan exists only in Rich Text Format. This press release was written with a comically oversized pencil.

This is Ben’s second solo exhibition in New York and is adapted from his exhibition Celebrate the New Dark Age presented at AMP in Athens, Greece this summer. The exhibition is accompanied by a hardcover catalogue published by Picture Box and a new zine made by the artist. Ben will also be redesigning the Deitch Website in conjunction with his exhibition. The show will expand onto and infiltrate the site, debuting a new interface and realm for interactivity.

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NEW SITE UP AND RUNNING

Uhhh Ohhhhh….

Uh, uh, y’buggin’!

NY eve in east Berlin was off the hook- was like a war zone- shooting fireworks at people- cars- and so on–

My hope is that change is coming. I was in Berlin screening Captured the movie. On new year’s eve a well respected theater called VOLKSBUHNE had a banner hanging across the top of the landmark building. The message that could be read from blocks away- FUCK OFF AMERICA.

On another matter I have a fabulous exhibition filling my front window @ 161 Essex Street. The artist Agathe Snow. Her art work is the explosion and break up of the Yellow Brink Road. A metaphor for the loss of the American dream. The road has exploded and pieces are strewn everywhere. The path still exists, but is in need of major repair. Can we repair this road? I hope so.

Agathe is a young artist who has shown her work in the Whitney Biennial, with Saatchi and Saatchi, been in museum exhibitions, has a gallery, but still cannot afford to live in NYC. She lives on the end of Long Island. She grew up in NYC, Her mother had a restaurant in Soho which was forced to close after 9:11. The muse has left NYC- it is near impossible for artists to survive in this city- yes the Yellow Brick- the American dream is as close to dead as I hope it will ever get.

-Clayton Patterson

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A Lethal Dose of Downtown!!! Instant Death in 3 installments… Experience a day with NYC’s Illest that will haunt you FOREVER!!!
Hit the streets and Terrorize the city with A-RON the DIRTIEST DON!!!
Lose control and Get Psyched with Weirdo Dave and FUCK THIS LIFE!!!
Witness the FUTURE of New York GENIUS and get WASTED with fuckin J.R.!!!