DIRECTLY – INDIRECTLY Alex Asch at the COX Gallery
‘I heard a radio interview with the South American author Isabel Allende. The interviewer asked her how she would like to be remembered. She chuckled and said “no one is remembered; it is a patriarchal fantasy, a masculine construct to make men feel better about dying”.
At that time, we were in lockdown, and I was spending much of my time rummaging through my collection of archived materials. I came across a bundle of early 20th Century black and white photographs. The unknown nurse, the unknown businessmen, the unknown wife, the unknown soldier – all misplaced, swept up in estate sales, unique and fragile but somehow generically similar, inhabiting that country that is the past. Undoubtedly, they faced their own pandemics, Spanish flu, polio, cholera, and countless others.
I have placed my collection of forgotten souls on billboards and the scaffolding of our evolving cities, not on the gleaming towers built for the edification of men’s egos, but on the suburban back streets with their shuttered shops and crumbling facades.’ – Alex Asch
The only thing we don’t know is the history we’ve forgotten
Alex Asch was born in Boston, and was involved in university art programs in Los Angeles and New York before moving to Australia and studying art at the Australian National University in 1988. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia. Alex is represented in Corporate and public collections in Australia (National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, the ACT Legislative, Canberra Museum and Gallery, and the Wesley Art Foundation) and further afield in USA, UK and the Netherlands.
Alex is represented by Beaver Galleries.
This exhibition is part of the Canberra Art Biennial 2022.
DIRECTLY – INDIRECTLY will be shown at the COX Gallery
When: 19 September – 29 October, with the gallery open 9am-5pm
Where: The COX Gallery is located at 1/19 Eastlake Parade, Kingston, ACT