Bernar Venet wins wins top award for contemporary sculpture

PanARMENIAN.Net - The 2016 Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award was given yesterday (March 1) to Bernar Venet at 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award Gala in New York City. The Lifetime Achievement Award Gala brings together artists, art patrons, and professionals to celebrate major sculptor’s career, Art Daily reports.

After many artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Sir Anthony Caro, Eduardo Chillida, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Bernar Venet and Kiki Smith are the winners of this 2016 edition.

Born in 1941 in the south of France, Bernar Venet's attraction to art became evident at an early age. In 1966, he established himself in New York where, over the course of the next five decades, he explored painting, poetry, film, and performance and was attracted to pure science as a subject for art. During the 1960s, Venet developed his Tar paintings, cardboard Reliefs, and his iconic Tas de charbon (Pile of Coal), the first sculpture without a specific shape. Venet had his first retrospective at the New York Cultural Center in 1971. He participated in major art events such as Kassel Documenta VI and the Biennales of Paris, Venice and São Paulo. 1979 marked a turning point in Venet's career: he began a series of wood reliefs - Arcs, Angles, Straight Lines - and created the first of his Indeterminate Lines.

In 1994 Venet was invited to present his Indeterminate Line sculptures in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which developed into a world tour. To date, the number of Venet's exhibitions amounts to no less than 250. In 2011, he became the 4th contemporary artist to be offered the world-renowned Château de Versailles for a solo exhibition.

Monographs in multiple languages have been published on the artist's oeuvre, with texts by noted art historians Barbara Rose and Thomas McEvilley, among others. His work can be found in more than 70 museums worldwide, including the MoMA, the Guggenheim and Centre Pompidou. Venet has also received commissions for sculptures permanently installed around the globe.

Venet is the recipient of several distinguishing honors, including France's Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Most recently, he received the 2013 Julio González International Prize.