Bernar Venet FRSS

Born in 1941 in the south of France, Venet’s attraction to art became evident at an early age. He discovered the work of historical artists through art books that his mother bought him. At 17, Venet moved to Nice to work as a theatre set designer at the Opéra de Nice before dedicating his entire activity to making art. In 1966, Venet established himself in New York where, over the course of the next five decades, he explored painting, poetry, film, and performance. He was particularly attracted to pure science as a subject for art. During the 1960s, Venet developed his Tar paintings, Relief cartons, and his iconic Tas de charbon (Pile of Coal), the first sculpture without a specific shape. 1979 marked a turning point in Venet’s career, when he began a series of wood reliefs, Arcs, Angles, Straight Lines, and created the first of his Indeterminate Lines. That same year, he was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Venet’s career has been marked by a celebrated series of milestones. In 1994, the then Mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac invited Venet to present twelve sculptures from his Indeterminate Line series on the Champ de Mars. From the success of that installation, a world tour was developed, visiting Asia, Europe, South America and North America. To celebrate the establishment’s bicentennial in 2007, Bernar Venet was chosen by the French Ministry of Culture to paint the ceiling of the Galerie Philippe Séguin located in the Cour des Comptes in Paris. The following year, Sotheby’s invited Venet to present his work on the grounds of the Isleworth Country Club, Florida, marking the first time they had exhibited a single artist at the venue. In May of 2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France inaugurated a 30-meter tall sculpture to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Nice's reunification with France. Bernar Venet became only the 4th contemporary artist to be offered the grounds of the world-renowned Château de Versailles in France for a solo exhibition of monumental sculptures in 2011. The French Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp of his 22-meter vertical Arcs framing the iconic statue of Louis XIV at the entrance. In October 2019, his Arc Majeur of nearly 200 feet was inaugurated in Belgium, on highway E411 between Namur and Luxembourg. It has been praised as Europe’s ‘largest public artwork.’

Venet had his first retrospective at the New York Cultural Center on Columbus Circle in 1971. Contributions to major art events such as the Kassel Documenta VI in 1977, and the Biennales of Paris, Venice, and São Paulo, followed. Venet has presented major retrospective exhibitions at the Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg Germany; the Busan Museum of Modern Art, South Korea; the Institut d'Art Valencià Moderne (IVAM), Valencia, Spain; the Mücsarnok Museum, Budapest, Hungary, and most recently in France at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMAC), Nice as well as his largest retrospective to date, at the Musée d’art contemporain (mac), Lyon. Venet is the most internationally-exhibited French artist and, to date, the number of Venet’s public sculpture exhibitions amounts to no less than 30.

Monographs in multiple languages have been published on the artist’s œuvre, with texts by noted art historians Thierry de Duve, Olivier Scheffer, Barry Schwabsky, RoseLee Goldberg, Barbara Rose, Donald Kuspit, Carter Ratcliff, Thomas McEvilley, Jan van der Marck, Thierry Lenain, and Achille Bonito Oliva, among others. His work can be found in more than 70 museums worldwide, including such venerable institutions as The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; and Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva. Bernar Venet has also received commissions for sculptures permanently installed in Auckland, Austin, Bergen, Berlin, Denver, Paris, Neu-Ulm, Nice, Seoul, Shenzhen, Tokyo, and Toulouse.