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Artworks:

Valentin Carron

Poison Infiltration, After the Sepulture, Macabre Operetta, Blood Ritual, With the gleam of the Torches, Bestial Devotion, Defensive Personalities, Until the Chaos, 2005
8 pieces, polystyrene, fibreglass, acrylic resin, acrylic paint
30.0 x 30.0 x 100.0 cm each
Shifting forms from one field of meaning to another lies at the heart of Valentin Carron’s artistic practice. When he exhibits replicas of life-size wooden beams that seem to spring from the venue wall, he is isolating a bit of a pergola or a chalet and featuring it in a perfectly unexpected way.

Shifted to a different context, these fake beams take on a disturbing, almost threatening aspect. And by choosing to name them after song titles by the Swiss black-metal band Samael, the artist tipped these signs of the picturesque once and for all into a hybrid dimension that mixes the uncanny and the familiar. The pergola, a structure often seen among buildings that are typical of peri-urban regions, of suburban properties hinting at something of the rural life, has provided much fodder for Carron’s output.

The artist’s interest in vernacular forms and the question of authenticity is reflected in his borrowing from a type of regional architecture, which is also embodied in the chalets of high-altitude pastures in the Alps, the famous “Schwyzer Hüsli”, associated with the simple, peaceful mountain life. When he reappropriates this symbol of alpine iconography, Carron emphasises what is supposedly the incarnation of a natural, romantic Switzerland strongly rooted in its well-established traditions. The wooden chalet and its typical, reassuring forms, however, are usually an illusion of traditional rural architecture, the fake old wood generally masking a contemporary concrete framework. Carron strives to bring to light this sham dimension at the very heart of something that lays claims to authenticity.

In an output heavy with irony, Carron seeks to instil the diverse, complex intentions that have gone into the elaboration of seemingly obvious and natural forms. More generally, their symbolic meanings, the outcome of a falsification or a political desire, evolve over time. Between a glowing homage to customs that are peculiar to a culture, and a usurpation of the values attached to those same customs, Carron’s work reformulates and decrypts our relationships to objects and signs, with humour and irreverence.
Valentin Carron, Poison Infiltration, After the Sepulture, Macabre Operetta, Blood Ritual, With the gleam of the Torches, Bestial Devotion, Defensive Personalities, Until the Chaos, 2005