Provenance
Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels
Exhibited
Brussels, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Banks Violette, 19 April - 17 May, 2008
Catalogue Essay
In a relatively short period of time, American conceptual artist Banks Violette has developed a consequential, singular and fantastic oeuvre based on a leitmotif of the Romantic canon – the notion that Romanticism is predicated on failure. Deeply influenced by the work of German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the German landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich, Violette’s evocative multimedia installations capture mankind in a state of decay and left to contemplate the shattered remains of its former glory.

As in Violette’s favourite Friedrich painting, the 1823 masterpiece The Wreck of Hope, in which a shipwreck is engulfed by grinding slabs of Arctic ice, so symbolizing the frail bark of human aspiration crushed by the world’s immense and glacial indifference, Banks Violette powerfully depicts in No Title (Throne) the inevitable demise of a society suffering from illusions of grandeur. One of his most accomplished and important installations to date, No Title (Throne), comprising a fragmented ornate chandelier covered in crystals and lying on a bed of salt, represents a transcendental moment frozen in time, the ghostly stillness of the broken remains of a violent encounter.

The nihilistic nature of No Title (Throne) recalls the groundbreaking installations of the 1980s New York painter Steven Parrino, a forefather of a generation of artists headed by Violette and his friend Terence Koh, both of whom currently dominate the city’s art scene. Violette, a high school dropout and former crystal-meth user, is, like Parrino, fascinated by the dark beauty of America’s underbelly, exploring the blurred line between fantasy and reality that defines society’s subcultures. Working as an assistant to Robert Gober, Banks Violette developed an artistic style defined by an exploration of the sublime. A hopeless romantic, his visual aesthetic has a certain melancholic feel, a quiet and poetic sorrow reminiscent of his illustrious peers and fellow New Yorkers Jim Hodges and the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres. The passage of time and the inevitability of death may permeate their art but it is a search for the beauty of a transient state found somewhere between life and death which defines it.

7

Banks Violette

No Title (Throne)

2008
Hand-cast sand-moulded aluminium, borax crystals, magnesium sulfate crystals, salt.
70 × 260 × 420 cm (27 1/2 × 102 1/2 × 165 1/2 in).
This work is unique and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Estimate
£150,000 - 200,000 ‡

Contemporary Art Evening

12 Feb 2010
London

1
Gregor Hildebrandt
Faith
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ♠
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Leandro Erlich
Rain
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Doug Aitken
2 disappearing points to 1
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Ugo Rondinone
Dritteraprilzweitausendundsieben
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5
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Green Butterfly)
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6
John Baldessari
Puzzle (Two Views)
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7
Banks Violette
No Title (Throne)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
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8
Jannis Kounellis
Untitled
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9
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
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10
Elmgreen & Dragset
Powerless Structures, Fig. 255
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11
Margherita Manzelli
Diencephale
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12
Cindy Sherman
Untitled (#196)
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13
Andy Warhol
Knives
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
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15
Martin Kippenberger
Antikriegsmuseum – Befehl im Museum für unnötige Kriegsforschung
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16
Dan Colen
Untitled
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George Condo
Father and Son
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18
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Cash Crop
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19
Banksy
Vandalised oil # 001
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20
Piero Manzoni
Achrome
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21
Ai Weiwei
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
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22
Gavin Turk
Oi!
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23
Grayson Perry
Transvestite Brides of Christ
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24
Philippe Pasqua
Marie
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25
Wim Delvoye
Untitled (Pierre)
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26
Jonathan Meese
PSSST, diese geile BIENENKÖNIGINNIN schenkt sich den Melonenfischi zum Geburtstag, DU LECKERMÄULCHEN "Rendamez"
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27
Anselm Reyle
Untitled (für Otto Freundlich)
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28
Peter Halley
Soul control
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29
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (707-1)
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30
Donald Judd
Untitled (87-29 Studer)
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31
Kenneth Noland
Mysteries, Amidst
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32
Franz Ackermann
Epicentre 1
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33
Gary Hume
Garden Painting #2
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34
Hermann Nitsch
Golden Love
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35
Albert Oehlen and Jonathan Meese
The Greeting
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36
Franz West
Untitled (Bench)
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37
Sergej Jensen
Untitled
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38
Terence Koh
Gone, Yet Still (Untitled 2)
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39
Wolfgang Tillmans
(Untitled) Las Vegas
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40
Monica Bonvicini
Caged tool #2 (stone saw)
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Thomas Ruff
Nudes dg06
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Tobias Rehberger
Reus
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43
Tracey Emin
I promise to love you
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Contemporary Art Evening

12 Feb 2010 London

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Provenance

Exhibited

Catalogue Essay

7

Banks Violette

No Title (Throne)

Contemporary Art Evening

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12 Feb 2010
London