BANKS VIOLETTE

For this new installation, Violette continues to mine a rich art historical terrain in which the materials and forms associated with Minimal and Conceptual Art become reactivated as theatrical platforms of performative decay. He pairs a large chandelier composed of multiple fluorescent tubes with a black wall that seems to buckle and melt against the reflection of the light. Both aspects of the installation recall the monochromatic tone and the use of replaceable industrial materials common to Minimalist and Conceptual sculptors such as Donald Judd and Dan Flavin; however, Violette’s works seem self-consciously constructed and theatrical. Wires fall in a cascade alongside the chandelier while the apparatus of steel tubes and sandbags supporting the wall remain in plain sight. By exposing these more banal technical necessities, Violette heightens the artificial spectacle of his installation, as if willing these two canonical art historical movements into an internecine danse macabre. He unmasks form and content as sites vulnerable to intellectual vandalism and moribund mythologizing.

Gladstone Gallery - New York / Through April 27