Bernar Venet
France
Bio
Bernar Venet (b. 1941, France) is a highly celebrated conceptual artist who began his artistic practice with a series of monochrome paintings using tar that he had made while serving in the French army.
In 1961, he moved to New York and started creating steel sculptures using mathematical formulas. During the 1970s, he took a break from his artistic practice in order to teach, travel, and work on a series of retrospectives. Resuming his practice in 1976, he began focusing on creating different types of arcs for site-specific installations that provide meaning to the surroundings.
In 2005, Venet was bestowed with France’s highest award, the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, and in 2011, he was one of only five contemporary artists honoured with a solo exhibition at the Palace of Versailles.
In 2012, Venet was commissioned by the luxury carmaker Buggati to create a unique artwork, which has been described as the “the fastest artwork ever”; in 2016, he was awarded the International Sculpture Center‘s (ISC) Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. At the conclusion of its 2014-2016 exhibition, the Vancouver Biennale presented him with a Distinguished Artist Award.
In 2022, an exhibition celebrating his illustrious career—Bernar Venet, 1961-2021: 60 Years of Performance, Painting and Sculpture—was held at Kunsthalle Berlin, Tempelhof Airport, Hangars 2 & 3, in Berlin, Germany.
A member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, he has work in many of the world’s leading art collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles).
