Bernar Venet

Born in 1941 in the south of France, Venet‘s attraction to art became evident at an early age after discovering historical artists in his mother’s art books. At the age of seventeen, Venet moved to Nice to work as a theatre set designer at the Opéra de Nice before dedicating his entire activity to making art. He started his art career as a painter in the early 1960s alongside other French artists of the Nouveau Réalisme movement. He gained prominence during the late 60s in the NY avant-garde art scene.

In 1966, Venet established himself in New York where over the course of the next four decades he explored painting, poetry, film, and performance though he was particularly attracted to pure science as a subject for art. It was during this time that he gained prominence as part of the avant-garde NY art scene utilizing this new scientific language and mathematics alongside such contemporaries as Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth, and On Kawara. 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 works. His explorations on these subjects and the variations of line via these mathematical investigations have come to define his aesthetic. His groundbreaking use and manipulation of raw material and challenges to the traditional goals of sculpture have changed the face of contemporary art.

In 1994, Jacques Chirac, then the Mayor of Paris, invited Venet to present twelve sculptures from his Indeterminate Line series on the Champs de Mars, which subsequently traveled to Asia, Europe, South and North America. In 2007, 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. In May of 2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy inaugurated a 30-meter tall sculpture to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Nice's reunification with France. In 2011, Venet unveiled seven monumental sculptures at the Château de Versailles for his solo exhibition.

To date, Venet has participated in over thirty sculpture exhibitions and his work can be found in the permanent collections of over sixty museums worldwide including such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim, Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. He has participated in biennales in Paris, Venice and Sao Paolo and Kassell dOCUMENTA in 1977. His most recent retrospective opened at the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Nice (MAMAC) in 2018.

Venet has been the recipient of several distinguishing honors such as the Commandeur des Arts et des Lettre and France’s highest decoration the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. In 2016, Venet, along with Kiki Smith, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center. Venet is also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. The artist currently lives and works in NY, Paris and Le Muy.

1941년 프랑스 남부에서 태어났다. 1966년 뉴욕으로 이주한 이후 40여 년 동안 회화와 시, 영화, 퍼포먼스 등의 다양한 예술 활동을 했고 그 과정에서 순수 과학에 매료되었다. 1979년에 발표한 그의 기념비적인 작품인 '비결정적인 선(Indeterminate Line)'을 통해 철 조각의 전통적 규범에 도전하였고 현대 조각에 새로운 지평을 열었다. 브네는 무거운 느낌의 ‘철’이라는 소재가 가진 특징을 이용하여 역동적이고 유연한 대형 조각들을 선보여 왔다. 이러한 소재의 특징을 자유자재로 넘나드는 작가는 그의 작품 세계 속에서 무한히 확장되고 열려있는 조각 작품들을 만들어낸다.

현재까지 베르나르 브네의 조각 작품 전시는 30회 이상 개최되었다. 그의 작품은 뉴욕현대미술관(뉴욕), 구겐하임 미술관(뉴욕), 퐁피두 센터(파리), LA현대미술관(로스엔젤레스)를 포함한 전세계 60여 개 이상의 미술관에 소장되어 있다. 또한 베르나르 브네는 전세계 각지의 도시, 오스틴(미국), 베르겐(노르웨이), 베를린(독일), 덴버(미국), 파리(프랑스), 노이-울름(독일), 니스(프랑스), 노포크(미국), 센젠(중국), 도쿄(일본), 툴루즈(프랑스)로부터 영구 설치 작품 제작을 의뢰 받았다. 베르나르 브네는 유럽과학예술학술원의 회원이며, 프랑스 문화부장관이 수여하는 ‘문화예술공로훈장 코망되르’, 프랑스 대통령이 수여하는 ‘레지옹 도뇌르 슈발리에’뿐만이 아니라 다수의 훈장을 수여 받았다. 2013 훌리오 곤잘레스 국제상을 수상하였다.