At first glance, the canvas appears to be an unused, empty, and yellowed painting surface, worn and aged. The stains are reminiscent of “soiled mattresses or bed sheets” and are difficult to distinguish from the cream-colored cotton canvas. Instead, the background of the painting, as a material medium, comes to the fore in the viewer's perception. With subtle nuances, a monochrome image emerges that shows the canvas more as a material support than as coloring pigments. Without a subject or mimetic meaning, the painting eludes consumption. The avoidance of composition underscores the ephemeral character of monochromy. In the 1950s, monochrome painting was one of the avant-garde techniques used by artists such as Yves Klein, who, in contrast to traditional peinture, aimed for a void freed from all meaning. According to Wollheim and his formulation of “art content,” this is minimized by taking the model of the representational image to the limits of the undifferentiated monochrome surface. The actual production is currently inherent and legible as a trace of the activity of painting. In Philipp Valenta's works, this is different and can be described as significant. The ‘emptiness’ that monochrome painting dictates through its traditional art history is subverted by both the materiality and the creative process. The color nuances are created by immersing the fabric in champagne. Once this has evaporated, the fabric is fixed onto the stretcher frame. Philipp Valenta does not start with a stretched canvas, and the moment of chance provoked by the artist becomes evident in the production process. As an abstract painting, it represents only itself, and it is the material that offers connotations that correlate the aesthetics of the painting with associations with champagne. The title also plays on this tension with the product (champagne), following the name of the champagne used in the Cham-Paintings series and incorporating “cheap products” alongside high-quality brands. Thus, in addition to the material, the title also becomes a source of ideas. In Comte des Brismand von Lidl, we think of the social status of counts and allow ourselves to be transported to Champagne, which, as a place of origin, has been symbolic of rank, prosperity, and glamour since the 17th century... until the evaporation of fame. Text: Roger Rohrbach, art historian and curator