March 26, 2010
BANKS VIOLETTE, né en 1973 à Ithaca, New York.
‘I’m interested in a visual language that’s over-determined, exhausted, or just over-burdened by meaning. The heavy-handed one-to-one of ‘black-equals-wrong’ is incredibly interesting to me — less as something that has a meaning in itself, but more in how those visual codes can somehow become reanimated. That’s constant throughout my work. All those images are like zombies — they’re stripped of vitality, yet sometimes they get life back in them … And, like zombies, usually something goes wrong when they wake up again’. – BANKS VIOLETTE
‘For his first solo museum exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (May 2005), Violette erected a life-sized recreation of a burned-out church on a black stage, inspired by an image from the cover of a black metal record and surrounded by a 5.1 surround score composed by Thorns Ltd consisting of a varied backdrop of ambiances. According to Violette, the inspiration of the piece was a series of instances of arson committed by rival metal enthusiasts in Norway, which culminated in the 1993 knife murder of Øystein Aarseth, guitarist of the black metal band Mayhem by Varg Vikernes of the band Burzum’ …
Sunn O))) – Oracle (2007)
Artwork by Banks Violette
‘ORAKULUM (Track B1) was originally composed for a live performance collaboration with the New York sculptor Banks Violette at the Maureen Paley Gallery in London, June of 06. Violette created sculptural representation of SUNN O)))s entire backline in cast resin and salt, including amplifier stacks, instruments, effects & accompaniments. In addition, black laquered stage platforms and sound panels were created as a basis for the groups actual backline setup, and a selection of drawings were presented within the context. The result of this performance and collaboration, which was conducted in a sealed gallery space, was intended to generate a feeling of absence, loss and a phantom of what once was’.
