The Hatchikian gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Undefined Lines de Bernar Venet brings together five unique works by this avant-garde artist. This exhibition can be seen at Art Loft until November 30, 2021.
Brief biography
French artist born in 1941 in Château-Arnoux Saint Auban in the Alpes de Haute Provence. Beginning his career in 1961 by applying a layer of tar to his canvases and exhibiting a sculpture composed of a simple pile of charcoal, Bernar Venet’s avant-garde work was quickly encouraged by the artists of the French art scene: Arman, César, Jacques Villeglé… Already adept at the paintbrush at the age of 10, he participated in the Péchiney painting salon at the age of 11. Persuaded that his existence would be artistic or not, Bernar Venet decided to persevere when the Nice Fine Arts School refused to admit him. Finally enrolled in another institution, he gradually trained in the art of clay painting.
Although he made his artistic debut in the 1950s as an assistant decorator at the Nice Opera, the plastic artist asserted his aesthetic personality once he settled in the United States. A keen student of exact sciences and mathematics, he developed a reflection on art based on abstraction. Disorder and chance thus became his preferred themes, as evidenced by the most explicit example, ‘Indeterminate Lines’, an installation in steel that made him world-renowned. Author of multiple monosemias (or one-way works of art), Bernar Venet appropriates various visual communication media.
Taking over New York in 1966, he discovered minimal art and continued his work with the experience of tube plans, reproducing scientific images only for their sense and the evocation of their formula. The neutral image is freed from the intervention of the artist and the subjectivity of his gaze. He exhibits alongside proponents of minimal and conceptual art: Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin… in the Dwan and Paula Cooper galleries… He then develops a four-year program that deals with the various branches of science and which he plans to end his artistic career. In the mid-1970s, he takes a break from his artistic work, during which he becomes a professor at the Sorbonne. The work he finally resumed starting in 1976 continues his commitment to mathematical formulas and takes a formalistic turn, both in paintings and sculptures. Since chance is mathematical, he creates series of sculptures titled «indefinite lines» following the path of the hand without any particular aesthetic search.
Rich artistic news
After a major retrospective at MAC Lyon in 2018-2019, it is the Louvre Lens that will host and honor Bernar Venet starting this summer, from June 14, 2021 to January 31, 2022. Entitled Bernar Venet, L’hypothèse de la gravité, the exhibition will highlight monumental works that explore phenomena related to physical laws faced by matter. Two works were presented as part of the exhibition Soleils Noirs last year, which somewhat provides a prelude to this search for gravity in the artistic gesture: Macadam and Tas de charbon, two installations in which the artist questions the matter of black color. Macadam is a monochrome surface obtained by pouring hot bitumen onto the support, with the flow playing a law of gravity with the industrial material that replaces the paint. In Tas de charbon, gravity defines the fall and movement of the coal, a work that finds a particular resonance in the former mining basin of the North. Therefore, there are many exciting prospects ahead regarding the deployment of this work by this indispensable artist. There are many outdoor installations to discover during outings; a summer visit to the Fondation Venet au Muy is a must on the agenda for outings in the south of France, and the Louvre Lens exhibition is a must this autumn.
The "Undefined Lines" at the heart of the exhibition by the Hatchikian gallery
While spectacular monumental sculptures are emblematic of Bernar Venet’s aesthetic research, the artist regularly creates smaller formats, whether in paintings or sculptures. Hatchikian Gallery presents 5 works available in its collections: three works from the series Random Combination of Indeterminate Lines, created in 1992, 1993 and 1995 using mixed techniques of oil stick, graphite and collage on canvas, as well as two sculptures: Random Combination of Indeterminate Lines, a unique work in steel from 1991, and Untitled, a bronze sculpture from 1993. We are at your disposal to introduce you to these works and provide you with all the information you may need about them.
« My work is always derived from concepts that seem antagonistic, but which I prefer to describe as complementary. This is my way of thinking, my method for discovering different solutions applicable to the history of sculpture. Here, I work on concepts of disorder, instability, uncertainty, and entropy. I can thus free myself from the constructivist traditions of intuitive composition, as well as from the serial arrangements pre-established by artists of the Concrete and Minimal Art. My installations, which no longer adhere to these conventional rules today, suggest randomness as the rule of the game. »
Bernar Venet
Image gallery
