Claudia Groeflin Galerie is proud to present its first solo show with the French artist
Benjamin Valenza (*1980, lives and works in Lausanne).
For the exhibition titled, Man With Objects, Valenza will focus on his most recent
Acid Paintings and sculptures.
Benjamin Valenza’s forms of expression are multifaceted, ranging from more
traditional forms such as sculpture, painting and drawing, as far as to video and
installation works. Furthermore, Valenza composes poetic writings and performs
interpretative lectures, whereby each work references the others. Formal decisions
as to colors, shapes and signs fuse with daily anecdotes, stories, discussions and
thoughts, which Valenza processes conceptually. With this “daily metaphysics” the
artist creates metaphorical fragments of abstract observations, which he expresses
as poetry, for instance through his ongoing exchange of postcards with his imaginary
interlocutor, Josef Hannibal, or even directly onto the surfaces of his sculptures.
In a further step, Valenza interprets his poetic writings in a performative act,
compressing and animating the open space between his concrete works. To facilitate
this method, the artist uses sculptural implements created for this purpose. The
word becomes discernibly present by way of its articulation, providing a connecting
element of physicality between the individual works.
For Benjamin Valenza, the moment of ultimate consolidation can be found in his
Acid Paintings. Painted with lucid colors and hand-processed with acid, the metal
panels embody the primary situation in which an artist finds himself at the initial
point of creation. Titles such as Ionian Blue against Copper shed light on the artist’s
debate with his subject and materials. The Acid Paintings serve as a backdrop for the
interpretation of the symbols presented to the viewer, and are therefore essential
forms in Valenza’s practice.
Benjamin Valenza graduated from the Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
in 2007, and in 2006 founded the renowned exhibition space Galerie 1M3 in Lausanne.
His works have been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions,
such as Art Since the Summer of 69 in New York, Fluxia Gallery in Milan, Vegas Gallery in
London, Musee Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, and most recently at the Istituto
Svizzero Milano.