The glorious return of The Baffler brought with it the incredible work of Benjamin Edwards on it’s cover (The Tower, 2009, pictured above, top). There is a ton of work to get through on his site, but you should at least watch this short video of the artist discussing his series The Triumph of Democracy.
Also— “Lately it’s occurred to me that the world my paintings have been about all these years is crashing down before our very eyes. If my work was ahead of the curve over the last ten years, visualizing capitalism and consumerism on steroids, now it seems that things have passed me by. Whatever paintings I make now necessarily look back on this era that is ending rather than anticipating something to come. The world as I have always known it, one of growth and sprawl, technological acceleration and anxiety, ever-increasing complexity and capitalist frenzy driven to unseen, dizzying heights—that world has been turned on its head. When I was making Convergence, I wanted to express a feeling that energy and speed were so intense that a flurry of fragments was momentarily held aloft. Now we see that when the consumption stops, it’s all just an illusion.” -B. Edwards
