Benjamin Sabatier (born 1977 in Le Mans, France, lives and works in Paris) develops in an almost exhaustive manner a concept as astonishing as innovative, that places the work of art at the heart of contemporary socio-economic reality and interrogates us on different features of our society—standardisation, excessive consumerism, the alienation of
work, the infinite repetition of gestures—and the place that these essential sociological reflections occupy in current art.
Peinture en kit, SAV, 2PackAge, Chantier (
Painting kit, After-sales service, 2PackAge, Site)… all the titles of his personal exhibitions refer to these key concepts of company life and of economy today.
With
International Benjamin's Kit (IBK), created by Benjamin Sabatier in 2001, the artist places himself at the heart of the social and economic realities that he questions. Designed as a work and a company,
IBK refers both to the world of business (IKEA) and to the history of art (International Klein's Blue). Sabatier, too, creates a work with materials that cost very little and that are understandable and accessible to everyone thanks to the voluntary affordable prices of these “ready to install” creations that sometimes require the collector to become involved.
By placing objects and waste engendered to excess by our consumer societies, such as adhesive cylinders, nails, cardboards and paper packagings, at the heart of his creations, Benjamin Sabatier, in his own original way, pursues the questioning led by
Walter Benjamin concerning the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.
