Related artist
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At ADAA: The Art Show 2021, Kasmin will present sculpture and works on paper by Bernar Venet (b. 1941, France) in a dedicated presentation that marks the artist’s 80th year. Drawing on forms from across the artist’s oeuvre, the works demonstrate Venet’s profound and inexhaustible exploration of form, line, and materiality.
Works on paper rendered in oil stick, charcoal, and pastel share formal expression with small and mid-scale sculpture. Together, they represent each of the artist’s signature series: Indeterminate Lines, Arcs, Angles, and Straight Lines. Exploring the complex relationship between an object’s conceptual framework and its materiality, the interplay between sculpture and drawing demonstrates a formal versatility that transcends material boundaries. As Carter Ratcliff has written on Venet, “A drawing is an end in itself, not merely a step on the way to realizing a sculpture, nor is a small sculpture of any less importance than one of the artist’s immense outdoor pieces.”
To inquire about the presentation, please contact info@kasmingallery.com -
Venet first gained recognition in the 1960s for the development of his Tar paintings, Cardboard Reliefs, and his iconic Pile of Coal, the first sculpture without a specific shape. The year 1979 marked a significant turning point in Venet’s career: having recently begun a series of wood reliefs—Arcs, Angles, and Straight Lines—he created the first of his Indeterminate Lines and was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Over the following decades his work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe, the United States, South America and Asia both in solo museum shows, as well as in major art events such as the Kassel Documenta in 1977, and the Biennales of Paris, Venice and São Paulo. To date, he is the most internationally exhibited French artist with 40 public sculpture exhibitions and monumental works permanently installed in cities including Auckland, Austin, Shenzhen, Berlin, Bonn, Denver, Geneva, Neu-Ulm, Nice, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, Toulouse, and Vancouver. In 2018, Venet was the subject of two retrospectives in France: Bernar Venet Retrospective 2019–1959 at MAC Lyon, and Bernar Venet: The Conceptual Years 1966–1976 at MAMAC in Nice.Venet has been the recipient of many awards including the Grand Prix des Arts de la Ville de Paris and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest decoration. In February 2016, the International Sculpture Center awarded Venet the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award for his exemplary contributions to the field of sculpture. A new site- specific monumental installation, Arc Majeur, was erected alongside the E411 highway in Belgium from October 2019.
A major solo exhibition at Louvre Lens, France, is ongoing through January 2022, in addition to a retrospective of the artist’s paintings at the He Art Museum in Foshan, China. -
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