Jeffrey Vallance is a California artist who creates objects, installations, performance and curatorial works.
The Word of God: Jeffrey Vallance
December 11, 2011 – February 5, 2012
Some of his past projects have included: traveling throughout Polynesia in search of the origin of the myth of Tiki, creating a Richard Nixon Museum, and traveling to the Vatican, Turin, and Milan, Italy to study Christian relics. Vallance’s interest in the relics and religion brings his work to the Word of God series. The Warhol will feature The Vallance Bible a series of writings based upon Vallance’s personal experiences, spiritual upbringing, studies and reading. This book includes a preface, a foreword, a gospel original – The Gospel According to Jeffrey – and a series of reproductions of works in connection with religion, the Reformation and John Calvin. This illustrated bible, published the year of celebration of 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin (Jubilee), will be co-published and distributed by Co-published by Grand Central Press and Centre d’édition contemporaine.
The exhibition will also contain a selection of his reliquary objects. The artist has created his own interpretation of scriptural texts not unlike a midrash in the Jewish tradition. Vallance’s interpretations and work is intellectually driven and carefully crafted. Vallance has a vast historical and cultural knowledge of the tradition of relics and believes “they are among the most beautiful and wondrous art objects created by humankind.” His reliquaries, like Warhol’s Time Capsules, store and revere mementos of people, places and things.
The Word of God Exhibitions and Project:
At a time when political parties fight viciously for the higher moral ground, when controversy reigns in the building of mosques, and when bigotry, abortion, and same-sex marriage are wedges of division in our culture there still remains room for interfaith understanding. The Warhol has, in its sixteen year history, presented difficult or controversial imagery and art in order to spark community dialogue. The dialogues and visitor experiences from such encounters with art and images are powerful and potentially community changing.
Image: Jeffrey Vallance, Juliet’s Balcony, Verona, 2006, courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkHomepage image: Jeffrey Vallance, Blinky Exhumation Bone, 2007, photo: Jean Vong, courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York