Bernar Venet
BIO
Bernar Venet was born in Château-Arnoux, France, in 1941. In 1958, at 17, Venet moved to Nice to study at the Villa Thiole, the municipal art school. He immersed himself in the cultural life in Nice and became an assistant to the decorator at the Nice City Opera.
Over the course of the next two decades, he explored painting, poetry, film and dance, and was attracted in particular to pure science as a subject for art. In 1979, Venet began a series of wood reliefs, Arcs, Angles, Diagonals and created the first of his Indeterminate Lines. That same year, he was awarded an artist grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1984, he started working at the Atelier Marioni, a foundry and ironworks in the Vosges region of France. Five years later, he acquired a steel factory in Le Muy in the Var region of France, where he fabricated and installed his work on the surrounding property.
Venet’s work can be seen in major museums and collections throughout the world, including the Denver Art Museum; Fondation Mourtala, Dakar, Senegal; Milwaukee Art Museum; He Xiangning Art Gallery, Shenzhen, China; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea;
Jumex Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
ART
These sculptures by Bernar Venet are precisely as described by the title—five beams of steel rolled into a 230.5 degree arc, plus two additional arcs—one 235.5 degrees, the other 232.5 degrees. Each is constructed of four beams of steel. Throughout his career, Venet works to redefine art and to separate himself from the idea that art is the expression of the artist. For him the most important element in a work of art is the concept or idea involved. In his recent work, Venet creates works based on mathematical graphs and formulas. In mathematics, Venet discovered a language of symbols that satisfied his desire to create an art that is non-expressive and not subject to personal interpretation.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
ABOUT THE SCULPTURE

2 Arcs x 4, 1999-2000
Steel
162″ x 162″ x 29″
230.5 Degree Arc x 5, 1999
Steel
162″ x 162″ x 36″
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Scarecrow, 2006 Tom Claassen
Untitled (Two Rabbits), 2004 Jonathan Clarke
Lifestyle, 2006 Niki de Saint Phalle
Adam & Eve, 1985-1989 Jim Dine
Big White Gloves, Big Four Wheels, 2008 Mark di Suvero
Aesop’s Fables, 1990 Jean-Michel Folon
Voyage, 1999 Laura Ford
Bird, 2007 Keith Haring
Untitled (Ringed Figure), 1987 Käi
Love Vs. Money, 2017 Fernand Léger
Femmes Au Perroquet, 1952 Aristide Maillol
La Riviere, 1938 – 1943 Ju Ming
Tai Chi Singlewhip, 1998 Igor Mitoraj
Eros Bendato, 1999 Julian Opie
Kiera & Julian Walking, 2002
Bruce & Sara Walking, 2007 Tom Otterness
Kindly Geppetto, 2001 Mimmo Paladino
Zenit, 1999 Martin Puryear
Untitled (Bench), 2008 George Rickey
Four Rectangles Oblique, 1979 Tony Smith
Night, 1962 Bernar Venet
2 Arcs X 4, 230.5 Degree, Arc X 5, 1999-2000 Erwin Wurm
Big Suit, 2010 Kan Yasuda
Door of Return, 2001 Jack Youngerman
Samarkand, 1981