J LH J’attendais un Viking. J’ai vu débarqué un grand escogriffe un peu empêtré dans ses bras et ses jambes trop longs, coiffé comme un dandy gominé… l’envers de l’image attendue. Le gars était souriant, exubérant, volubile, gesticulant quand il s’est mis à parler de son œuvre, de ses recherches, des idées qu’ils voulaient matérialiser. Adopté, les résidences se sont succédées. Les longues nuits aussi à peindre et repeindre des fonds jusqu’à obtenir la bonne couleur, la bonne matière, des soirées entières à couvrir ses toiles de petits points, des petits points encore, et encore jusqu’à ce que le geste se matérialise, jaillisse sur la toile. Insatisfait, les toiles étaient repeintes au matin, mais rien jamais n’altérait sa bonne humeur et sa persévérance.
Mister Freeze I Toulouse I 2015
Et puis le geste s’est modifié, devenu plus sur, plus spontané, la prise de confiance et le retour dans le spray ont marqués le tournant; il tenait alors le résultat qu’il perfectionne aujourd’hui et qu’il présente. Rien n’est fait au hasard, aucune liberté n’est laissée à l’œuvre, Benjamin explique tout, défend l’idée, le concept et se montre intarissable quand il s’agit de défendre son geste. «Jaillir» lui colle à la peau comme un trait majeur de son caractère, «Jaillir» illustre l’œuvre. Les habitués de Jardin Rouge, vont et viennent et tous reviennent. Benjamin fait partie de la grande famille de Jardin Rouge. Jardin Rouge l’a adopté au point où de temps en temps nous nous surprenons à penser tout haut : «et Benjamin... il arrive quand ?»
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V Vague 2 0 1 5 1 3 0 x 1 9 5 c m f e u t r e s u r t o i l e Collection particulière I France
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Le mur I Paris 13e I 2014
Beach Wave I Kristiansand I 2015
Lines magazine Directed by Clement Balavoine
Benjamin, what do you like about painting in a public space ? There are a lot of good reasons to paint in public spaces. I think the most important one is for the painting to be seen. A painting exists in the viewer’s eye. And, it’s a very strong social medium. Everybody, from any social class, has the opportunity to express themselves. What is also very interesting is that the viewer encounters paintings/expressions in everyday life. It’s not the viewer that goes to see an exhibition, it’s the exhibition that comes to him. It can build a very strong relationship between the viewer and the painter because it’s not fixed. It is art in life. Since Taki and the 70’s, graffiti became more and more popular, creating a strong and wide culture all over the world with amazing artists. Did some of these artist inspire you ? Or you maybe took your inspiration from a different domain ? Of course, it has inspired me a lot. My first strong influent moment was when I came on holiday to Paris, when I saw all the silvers through the window of that Euroline’s bus, such a flaming energy, it geared me straight up ! After a while, I started to dig deeper in,
I got to understand some great works from Influenza, Zeus, East Eric, and TomTom, a whole range of artists that was more about ideas than simple existence through style. They made me think, after all that feeling I’d done in my youth. This led me to study art. Every day I look at others work. I like to believe that the oscillations of the rounded shapes in your work could be cells in motion, or at the opposite they are stars, a nebula in the cosmos. I find it beautiful that we can interpret the two extremes : the very small and the very big, it’s very poetic. How about your vision, how do you describe your work ? Thanks. Yes, it’s about looking into something. I blow up the lines to make it easier to qualify their core. Looking at the millions of dots making up the line as separate entities turned in the same direction. There’s also a temporal dimension, where a slow process yields a dynamic result. It’s about deconstructing the spray line to bring the sphere of vandalism into the white cube. The first piece I sold was to an elderly woman that I met at my vernissage and we talked a lot about the density of the line and the profusion of dots. A week after she had bought it, she called the gallery and exclaimed that friends had told her that
Mister Freeze I Toulouse I 2015
« Amplifier cette ligne sauvage pour mieux en apprécier sa substance. » Benjamin Laading
Jardin Rouge I Marrakech I 2014
it was a big tag ! I was very pleased with this story because I had succeeded via my blow-up in getting her to appreciate a dusty fat cap flow ! What have you learnt thanks to your passion ? I’ve learned that possibilities are endless, and that if you are passionate enough about something you can share it and maybe even inspire others. I would say that your work is quite stellar, are you fond of science-fiction ? Yeah, for sure ! I grew up with Metal Hurlant. I’m cultivating these abstract science aesthetics. It’s projecting fantasies and it’s good to be excited about the unknown instead of being afraid of it. « What if ? » is a great beginning for creation. And I DO believe in aliens. Something different... NASA just found salty water on Mars, which is an astonishing discovery in space exploration ! For decades, a lot of people have had
the fantasy to create a colony on the red planet. But when you build a colony, you need to bring important things in order to allow people to live and create a peaceful community. In your opinion, what would be most essential to bring on Mars ? I find the prospect of inhabiting other planets very exciting. I think the most important thing to bring on Mars would be the sense of responsibility. A good dose of humility. And of course I would take some flint to etch on those great red rocks. To finish, would you like to paint on something special, like a Plane or a Spaceship ? If yes, what would you paint ? I would love to paint the energy of a rocket takeoff on a launch pad ! I just discovered a spot, in the middle of the southern Everglades in Florida, where a company used to experiment on solid rocket fuel in the sixties. There are several big abandoned complexes, one of which still has an empty rocket in it. I would love to paint there ! And I would paint the trace of the blow.
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Benjamin Laading est né en Norvège en 1982. Une dyslexie marquée lui fait suivre l’enseignement de Steiner et développe chez lui une forte sensibilité à l’image. Après 10 ans de peinture alternative, il est reçu à la Villa Arson, d’où il sort diplômé. Le travail de Benjamin Laading questionne la place de la contre-culture dans nos sociétés. L’artiste se passionne pour ce qui peut être défini comme indésirable dans la monotonie d’un paysage urbain fonctionnel. Dans sa réflexion artistique, il transcrit et fixe sur la toile l’instant où la peinture est projetée par la bombe. Son approche dimensionnelle porte l’infiniment petit sur d’immenses toiles et confronte le signifiant au signifié. Benjamin Laading vit actuellement à Paris et son travail est exposé en France, Suisse, Norvège et maintenant au Maroc à Jardin Rouge.
BENJAMIN LAADING né le 10 novembre 1982 ¦ 2 0 0 8 ¦ Diplôme Villa Arson, Ecole nationale supérieure d’art, Nice. ¦ 2 0 0 9 ¦ Don’t Believe The Hype, exposition collective, Galerie Motte et Rouart, Paris. Que Teenage, exposition solo, RDF Galerie, Nice. Hors Contexte, exposition itinérante collective, Nice. Vao and Friends, exposition collective, Espace Beaurepaire, Paris. Skog, exposition collective, Sprayboks kunsthall, Kristiansand. Julemarked, exposition collective, G punkt, Kristiansand. ¦ 2 0 1 0 ¦ By:Larm, intervention, Oslo. Exposition collective, Maison des Arts, Créteil. Chefs d’oeuvres revisités, exposition collective, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris. Too Much is not Enough, exposition solo, Sprayboks kunsthall, Kristiansand. Le M.U.R. fête ses 3 ans, exposition collective, Espace des Blancs Manteaux, Paris. ¦ 2 0 1 1 ¦ Nocturne Miromesnil, exposition collective, GZ Galerie, Paris. Assises de l’écologie urbaine, intervention, Maison de la Musique, Nanterre. Explosition, exposition solo, La Clef, Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Perffusion 2011, intervention, Démocratie créative, Strasbourg. Exposition collective, Galerie Jouan-Gondouin, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
¦ 2 0 1 2 ¦ Et Op ! L’Atlas et Benjamin Laading, exposition collective, Musée en Herbe, Paris. Contemplation, exposition collective, In-Street festival, Galerie Tampopo, Avignon. Magic Dust, exposition avec Babou, Galerie Florence Leoni, Paris. ¦ 2 0 1 3 ¦ Artazylum#4, exposition collective, Bruxelles. Exposition collective, Starter Gallery, Neuilly-sur-Seine. Wall, exposition collective, Galerie Cheloudiakoff, Belfort.
¦ 2 0 1 4 ¦ Black & White, performance, Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris. In Situ Art Festival, exposition collective, Fort d’Aubervilliers, Aubervilliers. Séquences VAO, exposition collective, La Vallée, Bruxelles. Red Light District, exposition collective, Jardin Rouge, Marrakech. ¦ 2 0 1 5 ¦ Le M.U.R. XIII, intervention, Paris. Glory Wall, exposition collective, MAC’A, Cloïtre Saint-Louis, Avignon. Art in House, intervention, Biarritz. Densité, exposition collective, Galerie Celal, Paris Ride The Wall, intervention, Genève. Gadekunstlaug, intervention, Kristiansand. Densité, exposition collective, Galerie Martine Ehmer, Bruxelles. Mr. Freeze, exposition collective, 50cinq, Toulouse. ¦ 2 0 1 6 ¦ Origines, exposition collective, Centre Culturel le BRASS, Bruxelles. Digital Exartcise, exposition collective, 100 ECS dans le cadre de Futur en Seine, Paris.
Imprimeur : Direct Print Casablanca
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Crédits Photographies : Benjamin Laading, Paul Etard, Poes
Dépot légal n° 2016MO3482 ISBN n° 978-9954-38-364-3
Contact I Estelle Guilie Mail I e.guilie@jardin rouge.com Téléphone I +212 (0) 6 15 64 01 35
Conception graphique : Paul Etard, Alizée Thily
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