In 2005, Banks Violette filled the Whitney’s Breuer building with a ghost — Untitled (Church),a scorched reconstruction of a burned church rendered in white polyurethane and salt, pulsing with the sound of Norwegian black metal. The work blurred fiction and reality, exposing how art’s power can be both beautiful and dangerous, capable of touching nerves so deep they spill into the real. I was 21 when I first saw it, and it floored me — the sound, the scale, the sheer presence. A few years later, I found myself in his studio, then working for him, and now, 20 years on from that first encounter, in conversation with him again. Violette’s work has transformed over time, but his preoccupations remain: the exhaustion of images, the horror of devotion, the entropy of minimalism, and the rot at the heart of America(n whiteness). In recent years, his ongoing exchange with Hedi Slimane — two artists bound by their shared precision, nihilism, and romance with youth culture — has opened new ground between art and fashion. Both see the stage as an altar: one in fabric and light, the other in ruin and salt.

As the world edges toward its own fever pitch — with a collapsing state and a resurgent theocratic right — Violette’s return feels not just timely, but prophetic.

Join me for a conversation with Banks Violette, an artist who saw it coming.

Doors Open: 6:30pm