Bernar Venet, 1961–2021, 60 years of performance, paintings and sculptures at Tempelhof Airport | 29.01.-30.05.2022

Several works by Bernar Venet were last on view in Berlin in spring 2019 in a survey show at Blain|Southern. Now an exhibition of more than 150 works by the internationally renowned French artist is coming to Tempelhof Airport. Starting on January 29, 2022, the exhibition will show all facets of Bernar Venet’s 60-year oeuvre on 8,000 square meters in Hangars 2 and 3. It is organized by the Bonn Foundation for Art and Culture. The curator is Walter Smerling.

Image above: Domino Collapse, 2021-2022, Cor-ten steel, Site-specific dimensions, Photo: Daniel Biskup, Courtesy: Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur Bonn © Bernar Venet, ADAGP 2022

The exhibition “Bernar Venet, 1961-2021. 60 Years of Performance, Paintings and Sculptures” is the largest and most comprehensive retrospective of the French artist worldwide to date. It encompasses his entire complex and wide-ranging oeuvre as a sculptor, painter, performance artist, as well as a radical conceptual artist.

The exhibition brings together over 150 works that reflect the artist’s uncompromising, almost obsessive approach to constantly reshaping his environment through art. The retrospective is the first in a series of exhibitions that will be shown over the next two years in the 8,000-square-foot Hangars 2 and 3 of Berlin’s former Tempelhof Airport.

Beginning in his first studio, the exhibition traces Bernar Venet’s career and the creation of a body of work that continues to question itself today. The most frequently exhibited French sculptor to date has always affirmed his conception of art that goes far beyond the formal and spatial. To this day, his aspirations are firmly rooted in the irrepressible desire not to simply accept the world as it is, but rather to give it his own perspective.

Unflinchingly direct and convinced of the emotionality, as well as the intention to symbiotically combine his existence with his creative pursuit, Venet once again gives voice to his ultimately deeply optimistic aspiration to reinvent art and change the perception of the viewer.

Bernar Venet (b. 1941, Chateau-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, FR) plays an important role in the development of conceptual art. His 1963 installation Tas de charbon (Coal Pile) is seen as the first sculpture without a specific form and the first example of an artwork made from unprocessed natural material.

WHERE?

Tempelhof Flughafen
Hangar 2 (Entrance) and 3
Columbiadamm 10
12101 Berlin-Tempelhof

WHEN?

Saturday, 29 January – Monday, 30 May 2022

Mon 11-18 hrs
Tue closed
Wed 11-20 hrs
Thu–Sun 11-18 hrs

COSTS?

Adults 10 €
Family 16 € *
Children up to age 16 free
Reduced 5 € **

* 2 Adults + Children
** Groups of 10 or more and schoolchildren, students, unemployed and ALG II recipients, recipients under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act, severely disabled persons and their companions.

Catalogue:

Bernar Venet 1961-2021, 60 years of sculptures, paintings and performance
336 pages
ISBN : 978-2-37372-145-4 / 45 €
Editions Dilecta, Paris. Available at the Walther König bookshop.

Organizer

Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur, Bonn

www.stiftungkunst.de