Bernar Venet: Steel & Paper
Besides his Arc Majeur (2019) of the highway E411, between Brussels and Luxembourg, Bernar Venet is best known for his work in multiple mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, as well as stage design and musical composition. Considered as one of the major Conceptual artists of this time, the show will present works from the early 1980s to the late 1990s, following his 5 years break from art.
In 1971, Venet decided to cease his artistic work. During this time he traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. He even taught at La Sorbonne (France) as well as lecturing throughout Europe. Upon the return to New York (1976), he soon began his first piece of the series titled Angles and Arcs, a group of extremely restrained paintings of elementary geometrical figures.
Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, Venet exhibited works such as Documenta VI and From Nature to Art. In 1984, he held a first exhibition of Indeterminate Linessculptures, an important series based on randomly created lines. An example this iconic work will be part of this exhibition Bernar Venet – Steel & Paper.
“They are all about how metal resists. They are a test of strength, a battle between myself and the piece of metal.”
Bernar Venet currently lives and works between New York (NY) and Le Muy (France), where the artist established the Venet Foundation in 2014. His work can be found in the collections of theMuseum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others.
