Banks Violette

throne/first and last and always

(reasons to be cheerful, Pt 7)

March 12 - May 3, 2025

throne/first and last and always (reasons to be cheerful, Pt 7), 2023

Stainless steel, aluminum, chain, ABS plastic, nitrile rubber, LEDs, electrical wiring, road case, MDF, power supply unit, acrylic paint, polyurethane

Chandelier: 70 x 56 x 104 inches/177.8 x 142.2 x 264.2 cm Road case: 45 x 16 x 19 inches/114.3 x 40.6 x 48.3 cm

Exhibition History: BPS22 Charleroi, Belgium, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, 2 February, 2024 - 5 May 2024; Celine Montaigne, Paris

P.O.R.

Throughout his career Banks Violette has drawn inspiration from punk and metal (black, death, doom and drone) subcultures, producing a cohesive body of work that asserts the formal qualities of minimalist and conceptual art while contending with the darkest sides of American society. 

Violette’s throne/first and last and always (reasons to be cheerful, Pt 7) is one in a series of 14 chandelier structures commissioned by Hedi Slimane, for the Celine Art Project, that were installed in Celine stores globally, November 2023 - January 2024. Violette and Slimane have collaborated on various projects and exhibitions over the past two decades. Composed of industrial white fluorescent tubing, wires, and metal, the sculptures are constructed with attention to form and materiality, deliberately configured in varying states of theatrical collapse. The series title references the British New Wave-Punk band, Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ 1979 single, Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 inspired by a roadie who had a near-death experience. Banks’ work embodies both darkness and light. It contends with the convergence of nihilism and transformation, and responds to the energetic legacy of performance. 

Banks Violette (b.1973) lives and works in Ithaca, New York. He received his M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2000 and his B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in 1998. Solo exhibitions of his work have taken place at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; BPS22, Charleroi, Belgium; Gladstone New York and Brussels; Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris and Salzburg, Austria; Maureen Paley, London; Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels; Team Gallery, New York; Bergen Kunsthalle, Bergen, Norway; Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium; MoCA-CT, Westport, Connecticut and The Modern, Fort Worth, Texas. Select group exhibitions include: Whitney Biennial 2004; The Shapes of Space, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Bastard Creature, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Compass in Hand, Museum of Modern Art, New York and American Pastoral, Gagosian London. Violette’s work is held in many prominent private collections around the world and in the following select public collections: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Coppel Colección, Mexico City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Fundación Jumex, Mexico City; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.