Bernar Venet

BERNAR VENET (Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, France, 1941).
"Random Combination of Indeterminate Lines". 2019.
Portfolio of six etchings.
Signed, titled and numbered.
Edition of 50 copies.
Measurements: 68,5 x 91 cm each.

"Random Combination of Indeterminate Lines" develops one of Bernar Venet's great conceptual cores: the line understood as an open system, visual energy and form in permanent tension. The portfolio brings together six etchings in which bundles of black lines, accentuated by subtle reddish areas, are grouped, cross and expand on the white space of the paper.

Since the mid-seventies, Venet turned the line into the central axis of his artistic research, both in sculpture and in drawing and graphic work. In contrast to the stable and rational geometric line, the artist proposes indeterminate structures, apparently random, that oscillate between order and chaos, calculation and accident, control and freedom.

In this series, lines do not function as simple graphic signs, but as dynamic bodies. Their horizontal arrangement, their twists and their accumulations generate a sensation of weight, displacement and latent movement. The result is a work of great conceptual intensity, where mathematical and scientific language is transformed into a physical, expressive and open image.

Due to its serial nature, its limited edition and its direct relationship with Venet's fundamental research on geometry, indeterminacy and energy, "Random Combination of Indeterminate Lines" is a particularly representative example of his recent graphic production.

Bernar Venet is one of the most internationally renowned contemporary French artists. Linked to conceptual art since the sixties, he has developed a wide production in sculpture, drawing, painting, engraving, installation, music and performance. His work is characterized by the use of lines, arcs, angles and mathematical formulas as plastic and conceptual elements. He has carried out important public projects in Europe, the United States and Asia, and is represented in institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the MoMA in New York, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Nice.