Charles Benjamin

Charles Benjamin approaches painting as an architectural practice, an orientation that resonates deeply within the context of his exhibition at Clarastrasse 50. As he notes, “A funny thing about painting is that it always seems to carry a crisis of legitimacy. Can a painting change the world? The answer seems to be no. That said, painting may not be able to change the world, but it can change the room.”

For this exhibition, Benjamin reimagines the site through a 12 × 7 metre gingham painting that unfolds across the floor. By leaning into the language of decoration, he probes a sense of “full” emptiness—an aesthetic condition that reframes spatial experience through pattern, scale, and rhythm.

In dialogue with this work, the Alphabet series presents a distilled counterpoint. Executed in a rigorously limited palette, these paintings test the parameters of perception and material presence. The two bodies of work together propose a conversation between ornament and restraint, surface and structure.

This exchange extends to the installation’s furnishings. Incorporating Alpine folk motifs into Donald Judd–inspired chairs, Benjamin playfully reverses modernist intention. What was once a statement of reduction and purity becomes an object of cultural layering and reimagined purpose.