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This “retrospective” exhibition at the MAC Lyon explores 60 years of work by Bernar Venet, an internationally-renowned conceptual artist.
Off the bat, you might be reassured to visit a French exhibition in a French city. As a cultural hub, Lyon hosts exhibitions on art from around the world, but the Bernar Venet Retrospective definitely counts as “doing French culture”.
Venet (b.1941) has only recently gained a reputation around the world. Nonetheless, he’s been working since the 1960s. His work shows the influence of a great number of artistic styles which appeared since then. We see the early Venet in works of tar and coal, some of which were painted with his feet. There is his move into other industrial materials such as cardboard, and his stylistic conversations with the New Realists, most notable for their urban, black-and-white photography.
Intriguingly, Venet’s work also shows the influence of science, which he admired, including astrophysics, nuclear physics, and formal logic.
Most of all, this exhibition will give you a sense of the mathematical quality of Venet’s work, based around lines and arcs. He even painted a car for Bugatti. Without a doubt his work will be recognisable as modern, a sharp departure from old-school painting and an embrace of the rational, the urban, and the “new realities” of modern life. Consequently it will appeal to those in search of some truly contemporary art, and keen to avoid the dusty galleries of old.
If you’re not a fan of the latter, you’ll like the sound of a young Venet’s goal to “remove any form of expression contained in the artwork in order to reduce it to a material fact”.
Jonny Elling
Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon
Cité Internationale, 81 Quai Charles de Gaulle, 69006 Lyon
Bernar Venet, Déchet, 1961 Peinture industrielle sur carton 150 x 120 cm Crédit photo : Archives Bernar Venet, New York © Adagp, Paris, 2018
Bernar Venet, Tas de charbon et Goudrons, 1963 Sculpture sans dimensions spécifiques Goudron sur toile Environ 150 x 130 cm chacun Exposition : Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hongrie, 2012 Crédit photo : Archives Bernar Venet, New York © Adagp, Pari
Bernar Venet, 77.5˚ Arc × 30, 2005 Acier Corten 410 x 360 cm Exposition : Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisbourg, Allemagne, 2007 Crédit photo: Werner Hannapel, Essen © Adagp, Paris, 2018
Bernar Venet, Effondrement: Angles, 2012 Acier Dimensions variables Exposition : Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hongrie, 2012 Crédit photo: Alexandre Devals / Archives Bernar Venet, New York © Adagp, Paris, 2018
Bernar Venet Exposition estivale de la Venet Foundation, Le Muy, France, 2016 Crédit photo: Xinyi Hu, Paris © Adagp, Paris, 2018
Vue de l’exposition Bernar Venet, rétrospective 2019-1959 au MAC Lyon (21 septembre 2018 – 06 janvier 2019) Crédit photo : Blaise Adilon © Adagp, Paris, 2018
Bernar Venet et son Effondrement : 200 tonnes, Le Muy, 2017. Crédit photo : Gérard Schachmes, Paris. © Adagp, Paris, 2018
- Monday:
- Closed
- Tuesday:
- Closed
- Wednesday:
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11:00 - 18:00
- Thursday:
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11:00 - 18:00
- Friday:
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11:00 - 18:00
- Saturday:
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10:00 - 19:00
- Sunday:
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10:00 - 19:00