Banks Violette (born 1973) is an artist based in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...

Biography

Violette was born in

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and studied at the School of the Visual Arts in New York earning at BFA in 1998, and graduated with an MFA from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 2000.

Work

Violette's work has shown internationally at galleries and museums including the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

in New York City, the

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, natio ...

in San Francisco,

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt The Schirn Kunsthalle is a Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, located in the old city between the Römer and the Frankfurt Cathedral. The Schirn exhibits both modern and contemporary art. It is the main venue for temporary art exhibitions in Fr ...

, Museum Boijmans van Beuningeng in Rotterdam, the Migros Museum in Zurich. He participated in the "Greater New York" exhibition at PS1 Center for Contemporary Art in New York City and "USA Today" at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in London. His work is featured in several prominent collections including the Musee d'Arte Moderne et Contemporain Geneva,

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

, the

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the D ...

in London, and

MOMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

and the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

, both in New York City. He is represented by

Team Gallery Team Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, with an additional project space in Venice, Los Angeles, California. It was founded by José Freire and Lisa Ruyter in 1996. Team has represented such ...

in New York City,

Blum & Poe Blum & Poe is a contemporary art gallery located in Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo. Development Blum & Poe was founded by Tim Blum and Jeff Poe in Santa Monica, California, in September 1994. The inaugural exhibition in Santa Monica feature ...

in Los Angeles, Maureen Paley Gallery in London and

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Thaddaeus Ropac are a group of galleries founded in 1981 by the Austrian gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac and has since specialized in International Contemporary Art. The group has galleries in Paris Marais, Paris Pantin, Salzburg and London. Histor ...

in Salzburg.

Death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

ritual murder Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...

and

teenage suicide Youth suicide is when a young person, generally categorized as someone below the legal age of majority, deliberately ends their own life. Rates of youth suicide and attempted youth suicide in Western societies and other countries are high. You ...

are starting points for Banks Violette. His work is notable for combining references to excess from youth culture with

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

form, often using glossy black and ghostly white materials. Citing examples where musical lyrics become instigating factors to real-life violence, Violette refers to an over-identification with fiction, where fantasy and reality are blurred. For example, for his first solo museum exhibition at the

in New York City, May 27-Oct. 2, 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 ambiences ( www.thornsltd.no ). 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 Øystein Aarseth (; 22 March 1968 – 10 August 1993), better known by his stage name Euronymous, was a Norwegian musician and a founder of and central figure in the early Norwegian black metal scene. He was a co-founder and guitarist of the N ...

, guitarist of the black metal band Mayhem by

Varg Vikernes Louis Cachet (born Kristian Vikernes; 11 February 1973), better known as Varg Vikernes (), is a Norwegian writer and retired musician best known for his early black metal albums and later crimes. His first five records, issued under the name Bur ...

of the band

Burzum Burzum (; ) was a Norwegian music project founded by Varg Vikernes in 1991. Although Burzum never played live performances, it became a part of the early Norwegian black metal scene and is considered one of the most influential acts in black m ...

. In 2006, Violette curated a group show titled, War on 45 / My Mirrors are Painted Black (For You), which included fellow heavy-metal nihilistic artists. The show included a black rhombus painting entitled ''For Steven Parrino / FTW (Dark Matter)'' made by Violette, in collaboration with

Gardar Eide Einarsson Gardar Eide Einarsson (born January 12, 1976) is a Norwegian-born artist who lives and works in Tokyo and New York City. His work encompasses installation, printmaking, painting and sculpture. Education *Einar Granum School of Fine Art, Oslo, ...

, and dedicated to the influential dead artist

Steven Parrino Steven Parrino (1958–2005) was an American artist and musician associated with energetic punk nihilism Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human ex ...

.War on 45 / My Mirrors are Painted Black (For You)
Bortolami Dayan Gallery, New York NY, June 29 – September 2, 2006. Retrieved October 6, 2022. Violette continues to make work, frequently using collaboration as a springboard for his new installations.

Stephen O'Malley Stephen O'Malley (sometimes referred to as SOMA; born July 15, 1974) is an American guitarist, producer, composer, and visual artist from Seattle, Washington, who has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone doom, death/doom, and exper ...

Sunn O))) Sunn O))) (pronounced "sun") is an American experimental metal band formed in 1998 in Seattle, Washington. The band is known for their distinctive visual style and slow, heavy sound, which blends diverse genres including doom metal, drone, bla ...

provided the soundtrack for Violette's 2007 double show at

and Gladstone Gallery in New York City. Violette's work has been described, by Francesca Gavin, as

New Gothic Art New Gothic or Neo-Gothic is a contemporary art movement that emphasizes darkness and horror. Manifesto "The Art Manifesto" was written by Gothic subculture artist Charles Moffat in 2001, who also coined the term in an effort to differentiate ...

.Francesca Gavin, "The Art of Fear", ''Dazed & Confused'', volume 2, issue 66, October 2008, p. 155.

References

External links

Team Gallery: Banks Violette

Maureen Paley: Banks Violette

''New York Magazine'': Banks Violette

"Ultra-Violette"
by Ben Davis, Artnet Magazine
Banks Violette at Team and Gladstone
review by Steven Stern, ''Frieze'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Violette, Banks 1973 births American installation artists Living people Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Artists from Ithaca, New York School of Visual Arts alumni

Biography

Work

References

Further reading

External links