2015
rolled steel
240 x 80 x 70 cm
Bernar Venet is a true polymath, whose creative activity takes in visual arts from sculpture, painting, photography and sound, to poetry and product design.
To all, he brings a cerebral sensibility founded on an early conviction that art should focus on ideas rather than the creation of beautiful objects. It is interesting to observe that in spite of this, his output is notable for its elegance and poise, unintentionally (perhaps?) suggesting a direct correlation between beauty and clarity of thought.
Coming of age in post-war France, when Minimalism and Conceptual Art were at their most influential, Venet embraced mathematics, physics and geometry, incorporating formulas into his designs and giving them visual form through the use of industrial materials and processes. Inspired by the great engineering projects he witnessed as his country was rebuilt following the devastations of World War II, he took the vernacular of architectural elements and materials such as steel beams to produce monumental sculptures that stood in dialogue with the built environment.
Starting life as drawings and digital designs, these towering arcs, angles, and straight lines embrace industrial processes, marrying Platonic ideals of objective truth with a profound engagement with their surroundings, whether urban or rural, standing as a species of tuning fork, resonating with the unique frequency of their settings.
Bernar Venet (b. 1941) is a French contemporary artist renowned for his versatility across various media, including painting, drawing, and sculpture. He gained prominence in the 1960s with installations featuring materials like gravel and coal, and later with monumental steel sculptures, including his „Arcs” and „Indeterminate Lines” series. His works are featured in over sixty significant collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, He is one the most internationally exhibited French artist with 30 public sculpture exhibitions and monumental works permanently installed in cities including Auckland, Austin, Berlin, Bonn, Denver, Geneva, Lyon, Nice, Paris, Seoul, Shenzhen, and Toulouse.
