About

Non­con­for­mism, quir­ki­ness and re­bell­ion, both in people and archi­tec­ture, fill Va­len­tin Blank’s lens. Born in Ba­sel as the son of a sculp­tor and a me­dia con­sul­tant, Blank was ex­po­sed early on to the work of ar­tis­tic crea­tion. Af­ter school Blank mo­ved to Bern, where he has li­ved since. It was not inci­den­tal that he com­mit­ted him­self pro­fes­sio­nally to the area of in­tel­lec­tual pro­per­ty, which pro­vi­des a le­gal ves­sel for cul­ture and art. His ar­tis­tic and con­tract pho­to­gra­phy took up a pa­ral­lel path. The rap­pro­che­ment of this me­dium, al­ready prac­ticed in his youth, pro­ved to be a stroke of luck, gi­ving Blank a vo­ca­bu­la­ry with which he could do jus­tice to the gro­wing com­plex­ity of his need for ar­tis­tic ex­pres­sion. His work as it exists to­day first took form in 2006.