Eva Presenhuber, Zurich

For its first participation to ART-O-RAMA, Eva Presenhuber Gallery will present a solo show by Valentin Carron with new pieces from his tiflex series.

In his work, Valentin Carron questions the construction of tradition and identity in a globalized consumer world. By humorously reformulating chosen symbolic objects, he exposes their authenticity as a construction. Playing on their inner tensions, symbolic objects from various cultural backgrounds are placed in a new context and presented as readymades, hybrids, or replicas made of unusual materials. The resulting sculptures are striking for both their gentle irony and their impact, questioning their own value and their mode of production and presentation. In this way, Carron’s work refers to Pop Art, Arte Povera, Fetish Finish, and Appropriation Art while creating intelligent links to the present.

Carron’s large-format works painted onto tarpaulins using Tiflex textile printing ink, and usually stretched onto a frame of tubular steel, were first shown in his 2007 solo show at Kunsthalle Zürich. In this cycle, too, Carron concentrates on motifs from everyday life and art-historical replicas. Whether he is quoting a work by Henri Matisse and awakening it to new life (Hate Eternal, 2006) or transferring a large-scale painting from the side of a house in his native Martigny to a museum format (Eternamatic, 2006), the central theme is always the possibility of seeing afresh. The work on show here, Littre, is also the result of this tireless search in the realm of long-lost images.

http://presenhuber.com/en/exhibitions.html