Actual Size is pleased to announce Made of Concrete, an exhibition by Sami
Benhadj and Tarik Hayward. This is the Swiss artists’ first exhibition in Los
Angeles. The series of 16 by 20 inch black and white photographs were created
during the collective’s year-long residency in the Swiss Alps. The artists used
cranes and forklifts to construct monumental still life arrangements with large
objects from the area surrounding their industrial warehouse studio in Monthey, Switzerland. Isolated against a backdrop of draped white cloth, assemblages of Jacuzzi tubs, cars, shipping containers and trees delicately float in elegant and precarious relationships.

The careful manipulation of environmental objects and methodical framework used in the exhibited works draw from conventions of Dutch still life painting, New Topographic photography, and ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. The photographs simultaneously describe and dramatize the natural qualities of the found objects. They play with the viewer’s expectations of scale and gravity, creating a disorienting balance. The photographs equalize their subjects through formal documentation, but also lend a new preciousness to the ubiquitous discarded objects that often disappear into a landscape.

An exhibition catalogue including essays by Samuel Dubosson and Yann
Chateigné Tytelmann will be available at the opening reception.

Sami Benhadj (b.1977, Algers, Algeria) and Tarik Hayward (b.1979, Ibiza,
Spain) received their bachelor’s degrees in video and photography from
Lausanne University of Arts (ECAL) in 2003. Selected exhibitions include;
Körner Union, Museum of European Photography, Paris, France; Hanging,
Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland; Rock and Petrole, Les
Complices, Zurich, Switzerland; My Log, Lausanne University of Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland; Rock and Petrole, Les Complices, Zurich, Switzerland; and We Do Like You, Kunstmuseum, Thun, Switzerland. They are recipients of the Swiss Artist Residency in New York, Swiss Federal Prize in Illustration, Most Beautiful Swiss Books Award, Swiss Federal Prize in Photography, Vfg Young Talents Award, Leenards Grant, and the 16th BFF Promotion Award. This exhibition is supported in part by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia foundation.