Category Archives: Banks Violette

The Image is Gone >< January – March 2006

The Image is Gone                                             

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13.03.2006

Marc Bijl, Banks Violette, Paul P., Michael Huey
January 19 –  March 18, 2006

Galerie Lisa Ruyter is pleased to present the group exhibition “The Image is Gone“ with Marc Bijl, Banks Violette, Paul P. and Micheal Huey. The exhibition is on from January 19 until March 18.

Marc Bijl, born 1970, Leerdam NL, takes in his work a good look at social issues and the symboles and norms involved. This results in acts or installations which undermine or emphasize our perception of the world. Thus he entitles his Lara Croft sculpture pured over with bitumen “La rivoluzione siamo noi“, or decorates spontaneous a Berlin garbage truck with the Dutch lion. Last year his works were shown at the Superstars Show at the Kunstforum Wien, in the exhibition ’Populism’ at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and others. He is represented by the young gallery ’The Breeder“ in Athens, which showed his solo exhibition ‚’Chesed/ Dien’ 2004. ’The Breeder’ gallery has supported us in every way for this project.

Banks Violette, born 1973, Ithaca, New York, USA, lives and works in New York. After a well noticed solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of the American Arts he became a Superstar of the young American art scene. He creates sculptures,graphite drawings and partly huge oil paintings inspired often by bands and record sleeves. 2006 he is going to participate in the most important projects in Europe such as “Die Jugend von heute“ at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (curated by Matthias Ulrich), “DARK“ at the Museum Boljmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, (curated by Jan Grosfeld) and “While Interwoven Echoes Drip into a Hybrid Body“ at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich.

Paul P., born 1977, Toronto, Can., is painting primarily portraits of young males and now also increasingly atmospheric landscapes by use of traditional techniques like Kreuzschraffur, pastel, oil and watercolour. While creating his paintings of unknown persons he rejects on the one hand the traditional process of producing art, on the other hand he is completely absorbed by it. His models are unknown to him and thus he is deceiving the intimacy usually linked to portraying.

Michael Huey, born Traverse City, Michigan, USA, living in Vienna since 1989. Michael Huey’s artistic method  has developed from painting, genealogical studies, art historical enquiries and collecting photographs. Since 1996 he is concentrating on historical photography and it’s realization in his work. The shining surface of the Diasec – technique reminds Michael Huey of the nineteenth century – the era of his initial specification – like for example daguerreotypes or the wet collodium – process.

Suburbia >< March – April 2005

12suburbia

SUBURBIA

Adam McEwen / Bill Owens / Steven Shearer / Banks Violette

3 March – 23 April, 2005

Galerie Lisa Ruyter’s Project Space
Waaggasse 5/First Floor/Top 6, A-1040 Wien

“I am more at home in Vienna generally than I am in Upper Austria, which I prescribed for myself as a survival therapy sixteen years ago, though I have never been able to regard it as my home. This is no doubt because right from the beginning I isolated myself far too much in Nathal and not only did nothing to counter this isolation but actually promoted it, consciously or unconsciously, to the point of utter despair. After all, I have always been a townsman, therefore not without reason that once I am in Vienna, I find that I can breathe freely again. On the other hand, after a few days in Vienna I have to flee to Nathal to avoid suffocating in the loathsome Viennese air. Hence, in recent years I have made a habit of switching between Vienna and Nathal at least every other week. Every other week I flee from Nathal to Vienna and then from Vienna to Nathal, with the result that I have become a restless character who is driven back and forth between Vienna and Nathal in order to survive, whose very existence depends on this strictly imposed rhythm — coming to Nathal to recover from Vienna, and going to Vienna to recuperate from Nathal.” – Thomas Bernhard (from Wittgenstein’s Nephew)

Suburbia is defined as a space between urban and rural, yet it is also a space that tends to have none of the qualities of either, no culture as in the urban and no nature as in the rural. The suburbs of America are especially quite famous, and there is not really such a thing to be found in Austria. Yet, the concept of Suburbia is a well-understood term. In a way it has become an elemental part of the culture that America exports, as well as a description of a suspended or compromised state of being.

This show here begins with Bill Owens, who has documented a very specific moment in the evolution of the term. Bill Owens presents barbecues, garage sales, daily domestic life, prayer groups, ribbon cuttings. In a Bill Owens photograph, an alternative lifestyle, dysfunctional family or XXX is first flattened by the concept of ‘suburbia’ into a mold of the generic. Stylistically the work differs from his contemporaries because of this particular message or emphasis. In the work of Owen’s contemporaries, the formal elements of suburban life are romanticized through craft to take on a Hopper-esque aestheticism. Owen’s work, when compared to his contemporaries, seems to embrace diversity, despite a technique which renders it generic or ‘suburban.’

As a counterpoint, we present three of the best young artists getting attention at the moment, who are working through many of the issues of identification alluded to in Bill Owens’ photographs.

Adam McEwen presents a series of obituaries of celebrities who are not yet dead, and sandwich board sign sculptures. Steven Shearer presents an installation of posters on the ceiling, with a mattress for the viewer. Banks Violette’s blank sign makes sculpture out of the suburban structures in Owen’s work.

Bill Owens (USA)
Adam McEwen (UK)
Steven Shearer (CAN)
Banks Violette (USA) was featured in the most recent Whitney Biennial and will open a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in May.