Bernar Venet, 1961-2021: 60 Years of Performance, Painting and Sculpture
In the most comprehensive retrospective of Bernar Venet’s work to date, more than 150 works show all facets of his 60-year oeuvre.
Bernar Venet Retrospective, 60 Years of Sculpture, Painting & Performance, 1961—2021. is the first in a series of exhibitions to unfold over the next two years in the Kunsthalle Berlin across the spectacular hangars 2 and 3 of Berlin’s emblematic Tempelhof Airport. The exhibition is the internationally-renowned French artist’s largest and most comprehensive retrospective in the world to date, spanning the entirety of his complex and widely diverse oeuvre as a sculptor, painter, performance artist – and radical conceptual artist. The exhibition will bring together over 150 works, reflecting the artist’s uncompromising approach and natural obsession for constantly shaping his environment through his art.
The retrospective charts the trajectory of the artist’s career from his very beginnings in his studio, which was made available to him by the French army during his military service, and from which the cornerstone of a body of work that has repeatedly called itself into question. Venet has consistently affirmed his concept of art as an attitude which extends far beyond the formal and the spatial. His aspirations to this day are firmly rooted in the unbounded desire to simply never accept the world as it is, instead lending it his own perspective. Landscapes and spaces suddenly assume a new dimension, allowing the observer to differently view – and feel – the energetically charged space in which his signature steel lines, arcsand angles are installed.
The exhibition is a personal homage to Dr. Paul Wember, as Venet pays tribute to the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld.