Yael Ben-Simon and Josh Green

Fool’s Errand

Booth 1112

September 6-11, 2023

It’s tempting to find parallels between the fool and the artist. Like the artist, the fool is a controversial figure. Some view him as a benevolent being, good-hearted and funny. Others swear that despite his bubbly disposition, he is truly and utterly dangerous. As a result, we get the archetype of the paradoxically sad and brooding clown. Artists nowadays seem to adopt these polarities, in an attempt to navigate opposing expectations. Aiming to please and entertain, they traverse the increasingly problematic art market whilst always hinting at an alluringly pernicious matter at the core of their practice. 

Just like the mercurial tramp, the works in the show tend to vacillate emotionally between whim and solemnity. With sculptures as their subject matter, they articulate a relationship to past traditions rendered through the use of new technologies. The artists borrow, shuffle and distort their imagery using 3d scanning, modeling and other forms of digital world building. Their compositions, while realistic in style, are not looking to any recognizable domains but are rather inspired by the esoteric or the incongruent.

The Delphic maxim “know thyself” and Socratic dictum “the unexamined life is not worth living” express the impetus of Green’s art practice. His paintings disregard the categorization of time as he atemporally synthesizes classical philosophy, old masters painting, new-tech, and contemporary aesthetics. Green pursues self-knowledge through his contemplative studio practice. The painting, Meditations on the Platonic Solids, was painted from a blend of Museum 3d models, plaster sculptures, and active imaginations. The black space with green static represents the Eigengrau background of the visual mind. 

The painting materializes an inner visualization of the spirit of Plato’s Metaphysics. In this bizarre world of forms, symbols emerge from the mind onto the canvas. The five platonic solids surround the legs of an Egyptian faience sculpture. Looming plaster forms lurk in the overhead projection.

In her paintings, Ben-Simon places greco-roman statues in playful environments that evoke the visual language of ubiquitous ad imagery. At once whimsical and grandiose, the statues change appearances as well in her humble bid to deal with the anxiety of art history. In Inferno, we witness a reclining and aloof venus watching two figures emerging from the water. In this theatrical setting where each statue is an active participant, Ben-Simon is able to give them a new lease in life. Devoid of the narratives assigned to them throughout years of cultural regurgitation, thus adding an element of fun and frivolity.

Josh Green is an American artist that works and lives in Brooklyn NY.  His paintings have been recently shown with Paradice Palase NYC, Artspace Düsseldorf, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery NY, Kunstpunkte Düsseldorf, Arcadia Contemporary Pasadena, Texas Contemporary Art Fair Houston. He received his MFA from Alfred-Düsseldorf painting program split between NY and Germany. He is a graduate of the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy drawing, painting, and artistic anatomy programs. He has founded Green Atelier, a virtual school of classical painting (greenatelier.art). He produces a Philosophy of Art podcast called, The Painter’s Dialectic. His website is joshgreenart.com. His instagram handle is @josh_green_artist 

Yael Ben-Simon is an Israeli artist that works and lives in Brooklyn NY. Recent shows include Shelter Gallery NYC (solo), Natasha Arselan Gallery London UK (solo), Moskowitz Bayse Gallery LA, Thierry Goldberg Gallery NYC, Chashama NYC, Geary Contemporary NYC and Hyde Park Art Center Chicago. Recent fellowships include Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts SIP fellowship NYC and NYFA’s Immigrant Artists Program NYC. Artist Residencies include: MASS MoCA MA, Wassaic NY, Pilotenkueche Artist Residency in Leipzig Germany, SIM Residency in Reykjavik and Vermont Studio Center VT. Her works have been featured in New American Paintings in 2017. She received her BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jesrusalem  and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute Chicago.