Do ré mi fa so la si do is Valentin Carron’s first all-painting exhibition. While the artist has occasionally made paintings since he started exhibiting in the early ‘2000s (less than 20 pieces, all-in-all, to this day), he regarded them essentially as three-dimensional wall objects, comfortably at home within his primarily sculptural production. If the 34-odd works specifically made for Do ré mi fa so la si do retain the characteristic objecthood of these earlier pieces, as well as a wry self-awareness of their status as decorative furniture pieces for bourgeois interiors, this new ensemble frontally engages with formal and conceptual considerations specific to the history of painting, such as the erosion of 20th century pictorial languages, or the romanticized figure of the painter.
These works are all painted with silkscreen inks on PVC tarpaulins. These are then affixed with metal wires to frames made up of plumbing pipes. Valentin Carron has been using these same industrial materials to manufacture his paintings since 2006. The artist wanted to find a support “hollowed-out from the secular history of oil paint on canvas – something soulless and artificial.” This lack of intrinsic substantial qualities can be said of the artist’s entire production, typically made of artificial resin and acrylic paints. Yet, Valentin Carron’s sculptures tend to be purposely deceptive: whether the artist puts on display artifacts that are supposed to embody the “naturally authentic” character of the Alpine culture, or the failed progressive values of small-town vernacular modernist public art, the surface of his works mimics – to calculated and varying degrees – the patina of their model’s original material: wood, marble, concrete, etc. By contrast, his paintings have always flaunted from the get-go the stuff they are made of. What one sees is what’s there: a metal frame covered by a plastic tarpaulin on which a mediocre motif has been halfheartedly hand-painted.
Valentin Carron characterizes the making of these paintings as a succession of built-in failures. A found motif is projected on the surface of the vinyl and loosely traced with a pen. Color is then filled-in around it as in a coloring book. Except that the silkscreen ink used for this purpose is designed for printing rather than painting. The ink rapidly becomes gooey, corrodes the surface of the tarpaulin and dries within minutes, making any smooth – painterly – application impossible. Everything has to be done quickly, in a single layer. “It’s like painting Al fresco with tar,” says valentin Carron. “Working through this self-imposed technical quagmire may give the illusion of a ‘sensibility’, but it in fact defeats any intuitive accomplishment. This process is physically unpleasant, psychologically draining, and the end-result cannot be but a disappointment.”
All the motifs are modernist-inspired illustrations dating from the post-War era, culled from the covers and spines of industrially produced cloth or leather-bound books. Originating from Switzerland, France, Germany and Poland, the majority of these volumes were originally available through book club subscriptions. “One can’t deny the progressive outlook of the times, and such well-distributed elegant books, dressed in modern clothing, are a clear sign of that,” says Valentin Carron.“ Some of these cover illustrations are not completely formally uninteresting, as they somehow manage to produce a graphic synthesis of complex pictorial expressions. Yet, I tend to be mostly attracted to the weaker ones, images that are devoid of any hope or desire to invent new forms. They seem to embody a profound sense of weariness, which has much to do with the fact that, in retrospect, the optimism of this era has not held its promises. When I stare at these images, it’s hard for me not to see them as a sign of capitulation.
Valentin Carron lives and works in Martigny, Switzerland, where he was born in 1977. 2013 he represented Switzerland at the 55th Venice Biennale. Major presentations of his works were realized at Palais de Tokyo Paris, Kunsthalle Zürich, Swiss Institute New York, Centre d‘Art Geneva, Chisenhale Gallery London and Mamco Geneva.
Kunsthalle Bern thanks Kultur Stadt Bern, Burgergemeinde Bern, Egon-und-Ingrid-Hug Stiftung, Luma Stiftung, Pro Helvetia and Die Mobiliar.