Wright Auction

Conceptual artist Bernar Venet was raised in the Provence region of France and studied at La Villa Thiole in Nice for a year before embarking on a career as an artist. Venet moved to New York in 1967 and attended classes at the Department of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University, which would go on to influence the future of his work by helping him tie his artistic practice to the disciplines of math and science. He first gained recognition in the 1960s for his Tar paintings, Cardboard reliefs, and his iconic and pioneering sculpture Pile of Coal, a Minimalist piece (and, quite literally, a pile of coal) with no discernable or predetermined shape.

Venet began producing what would become his most iconic series in the early 1980s: dubbed Arcs, Straight Lines, and Indeterminate Lines, these series consist of monumental linear improvisations in steel that express his interests in the mathematics of order versus chaos and are described by the artist as “a test of strength—a battle between myself and the piece of metal.” Although he is most famous for his larger-than-life steel sculptures, Venet is also lauded for his versatility, and works in a variety of media including painting, drawing, installations, stage design, poetry, photography, and musical composition.

He is the recipient of many awards including the Grand Prix des Arts de la Ville de Paris (2013), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center (2016), and the title of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (2005), France's highest honor. In 2014 he founded the Venet Foundation to exhibit and archive his and numerous other artists' works (among them Arman, Donald Judd, and Jean Tinguely), and in 2020, he was admitted to the Royal Society of Sculptors in London. Venet’s work has been exhibited extensively around the world in both solo and museum shows, and he has countless monumental works permanently installed in cities including Austin, Berlin, Denver, Geneva, Paris, and Tokyo, in addition to being included in over sixty of the world's leading art collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.