Bernar Venet
Bernar Venet (born April 20, 1941 in Château-Arnoux , France ) is a French sculptor and conceptual artist .
Bernar Venet is one of the internationally outstanding sculptors of our time. Venet's steel sculptures are represented in many international museums, private collections and in public spaces.
Life
From the age of ten, Bernar Venet devoted himself to painting. After attending school, Venet studied in Nice in 1958 at the city's school for fine arts and then worked as a set designer at the Nice Opera until 1963 . Bernar Venet began working as an artist after completing his military service in 1961 and in 1964 took part in the Salon Comparaison of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris . In the 1960s he devoted himself to painting, drawing and photography, conceived a ballet and withdrew from artistic activity in 1971. Venet concentrated on questions of art theory, taught art and art theory at the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1974 , and then returned to artistic work in 1976. In the following year he was a participant in documenta 6 in Kassel and in 1978 in the Venice Biennale .
In 1966 Venet moved to New York .
plant
At the beginning of his career in the early 1960s, Bernar Venets worked with tar, which he processed into monochrome panel paintings. At the same time, gestural pictures, cardboard reliefs and photographs were created. During his five-year “creative break”, Venet devoted himself to physical and mathematical questions, taught art theory at the Sorbonne and developed the line as an artistic challenge for himself. In his steel sculptures it is the object with which he deals with the phenomena of time, space and movement. His knowledge of mathematics and physics play a major role here, but also the question of chance.
When Bernar Venet started to work again in 1976, he first turned to other genres. He created paintings, wooden reliefs and then started making steel sculptures.
In 1988 he came out with the ballet "Graduation" created in 1966, which was performed at the Paris Opera, a kind of total work of art with the music , the equipment and the choreography of Venet. Subsequently, Venet composed (including two CDs in 1991) and, despite concentrating on sculpture, remained connected to painting and photography; he also produced films. So he took z. B. 1993 at the Festival for Artists' Films in Montreal , Canada , with his work "Rolled Steel XC-10".
In the 1990s, Bernar Venet achieved a large international response. He exhibited in Europe as well as in North and South America. While he is often perceived solely as a sculptor, he systematically pursued his other artistic forms of expression. In 2001 a publication documents his diverse design drafts. In the same year , the Saint-Jean chapel was opened in Château-Arnoux , his birthplace, with stained glass windows and furnishings designed by Venet. During these years he received commissions for many sculptures in public places, e.g. B. Cologne (1999), Paris (Am Triumphbogen, 2002), Nice and Luxembourg (2003), New York (2004).
In Germany, Venet is particularly present in Berlin through the 20 m high sculpture Arc de 124.5 ° donated by the French state in 1987 (gift from France to Berlin for the 750th anniversary, located on the median of the street An der Urania , opposite the eponymous Berlin Urania ). He created the ARC '89 for Bonn . The monumental sculpture made of 14 steel arches with a total height of 17 meters stands on the large roundabout on the B9 / Museum Mile (trajectory junction).
In 2019 the Arc Majeur was installed on the right and left of the E 411 near Lavaux-Sainte-Anne in Belgium . With a height of 60 m on one side and 20 m on the opposite side, it is one of the tallest sculptures in public space in Europe.
Exhibitions (selection)
- 1968: Prospectus 1968, Düsseldorf
- 1970: Museum Haus Lange , Krefeld
- 1975: Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 1976: La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, USA
- 1977: documenta 6 , Kassel
- 1984: Sainte-Croix Museum, Poitiers, France
- 1987: Museum Quadrat , Bottrop
- 1989: Center for Contemporary Art, Troyes, France
- 1993: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nice, France
- 1994: Champ de Mars, Paris, France; Modern Art Museum, Bogota, Colombia
- 1995: Hong Kong Museum of Modern Art, Hong Kong, China
- 1996: Rheingarten, Cologne
- 1999: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCO), Geneva, Switzerland
- 2000: Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 2002: Center Georges Pompidou , Paris (performance)
- 2003: Hotel des Arts, Toulon, France
- 2004: Sculptures in Liège, Liège, Belgium
- 2005: Vancouver International Sculpture Biennial, Vancouver, Canada
- 2007: Museum Küppersmühle , Duisburg
- 2008/09: Kunsthalle Darmstadt
- 2010: Krauthügel, Salzburg
- 2011: Blickachsen , Goethe University , Frankfurt am Main, Westend campus
Prices (selection)
- 1989: Grand Prix des Arts de la Ville de Paris
- 1996: Chevalier des Arts et Lettres
- 1997: Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts , Salzburg , Austria
- 2005: Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur
- 2005/2006: Robert Jacobsen Prize
Literature (selection)
- Thierry Lenain: Bernar Venet. Flammarion, Paris 2002.
- Bernar Venet, Rétrospective: 1963 - 1993. Exhibition catalog, Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain Nice, June 25 - September 12, 1993.
Web links
- Page of the artist
- Literature by and about Bernar Venet in the catalog of the German National Library
- Materials by and about Bernar Venet in the documenta archive
- Interview with Bernar Venet on artfacts.net
- The world of Bernar Venet - works in public space
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Venet, Bernar |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Venet, Bernard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 20, 1941 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Château-Arnoux |