Utilisateur:Knokkelezoute/Brouillon

Benjamin Spark is a franco-belgian artist born in Boulogne-Billancourt (France) in 1969. His visual language freely samples from art history and popular culture, redeploying canonized styles and genres alongside graphics borrowed from youth subcultures and the commercial mainstream[1].

He lives and works in Brussels.

Biography

modifier

He wasn’t always an artist as he was running an internet business in Paris from the age of 25. He created this web design company with a close friend[2].

By the age of 30 he dropped everything to start painting as a self-taught artist. He took drawing master classes at the renown Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then left for New-York to improve his skills. He abandoned Paris to settle in Brussles in 2006 and found his studio in a converted brewery on the mean streets of Brussels. From then, he found his style and started collaborating with french and belgian art galleries. He started exhibiting in these galleries in 2009 with solo shows.

Artistic style

modifier

After flirting with tribal-influenced art brut, known as 'outsider art', Spark developed his own style, amalgamating pop and graffiti art[3]. He cites Icelandic post-modernist Erro and New York street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat among his influences, and changed his name in tribute to the designer Philippe Starck[4]. Spark’s pictorial worlds include quotations from artists like Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Basquiat, as well as song lyrics, brand logos, video games, cartoons, and magazine covers. He subverts the locked-in comic book universe, juxtaposing extracts from comic strips, then leaves them dirtied and defaced with a spray-paint graffiti attack. "I take these icons and ridicule them, to illustrate a sort of disorder in their world," he says[5].

He decontextualizes well-known characters of comic books and films by placing them against colorful, contrasting backdrops. Spark plays with these images, juxtaposing several, non-related figures on one canvas, while also cutting out, overlapping or covering parts of them[6]. Benjamin Spark admits being a frustrated comic strip author/artist. That explains why he considers this form of entertainement an art as much as painting or sculpting[7].

He recently made use of different techniques such as computer art, signaling a response to traditional forms of art and the influence of the new age of technology on contemporary art[8]. His narrative compositions often express the artist's feelings regarding his inner life and the world around him[9].

Exhibitions

modifier

Since 2006, Benjamin Spark exhibited in many art galleries in several countries. His first solo show was held at the Gallery Berthéas in Vichy (France) in 2009. That gallery became his exclusive partner for several years in France. In 2010 he had a show called "Bad Joke" at Gallery L'Entrepot in Monaco[10].

  • May 2017 : Exposition personnelle au Centre d’art – Maison Elsa Triolet-Louis Aragon (Moulin de Villeneuve) - France
  • February 2017 : Exposition à la Galerie The Art Project - Bruxelles
  • July 2016 : « The Possibility of an Island » - Galerie Kakopoulos, Athènes
  • November 2015 : « All The Word’s a Stage » - Galerie Marie Demange, Bruxelles
  • October 2015 : « Fragmentations » - Galerie Bertheas-Les Tournesols, Paris
  • Décember 2014 : Exposition collective - Galerie Zimmerman & Heitmann Düsseldorf
  • October 2014 : « It Takes a Fifetime to Unlearn Everything » - Mazel Galerie, Bruxelles
  • April 2014 : « Looking for Spark » - Galerie Bck, Marrakech
  • November 2013 : « L’Affaire Spark aux Tournesols » Galerie Bertheas-les-Tournesols, Saint-Étienne
  • April 2013 : il participe à une importante exposition collective intitulée « Graffiti Group Show » à la Galerie Bertheas Les Tournesols . L’exposition présente aussi les œuvres de Speedy Graphito, JonOne, M. Chat, Miss.Tic, Quick, Crash (aka John Matos).
  • November 2012 : Exposition collective : Pop International Galerie, New York
  • Artiste BEN writes the foreword of his exhibition catalog « Spark au carré » at the Gallery Berhéas-Les Tournesols in october 2012.
  • September 2010 : « Bad Joke » - Gallery L’Entrepôt, Monaco

References

modifier
  1. « Benjamin Spark : l'artiste inspiré du chaos des cultures », sur www.espace-livres.be (consulté le )
  2. Benjamin Spark, Benjamin Spark, Éditions Louise à Bruxelles, , page 30 (ISBN 978-2960184709)
  3. « Benjamin Spark : «Une fois que tout est propre… je salis tout» », Le Progrès,‎ (lire en ligne, consulté le )
  4. « À la rencontre de Benjamin Spark, le roi de la street pop - Gael.be », Gael.be,‎ (lire en ligne, consulté le )
  5. « Benjamin Spark En 6 dates (La Libre Belgique) », sur La Libre Belgique,
  6. « Sortir du carcan », sur momento.blogs.lalibre.be (consulté le )
  7. Benjamin Spark, Benjamin Spark, Éditions Louise à Bruxelles, , page 11 (ISBN 978-2960184709)
  8. http://www.galeriedys.com/images/presse/COLLECT-AAA-FR-NOV15.pdf
  9. « Benjamin Spark », sur Télérama Sortir (consulté le )
  10. « Performance / Évènement - Benjamin Spark - SPaRK on the Rock - L'Entrepôt Monaco - Galerie d'Art », sur www.lentrepot-monaco.com (consulté le )

Bibliography

modifier
modifier

{{Portail|peinture}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Spark, Benjamin}} [[Catégorie:Peintre français du XXIe siècle]] [[Catégorie:Peintre belge du XXIe siècle]] [[Catégorie:Naissance en 1969]] [[Catégorie:Naissance à Boulogne-Billancourt]]

  1. lefigaro.fr, Programme TV - La Grande Expo - Art et Bande dessinée présenté par David Abikersur TVMag [1] consulté 2017-01-16