The value of art – how to cultivate a company, Focus: Bernar Venet
19. Bernar Venet; '83,5° Arc x 8', Rolled Steel, Patinated, Estimate 500 000 – 600 000 SEK / 47 664 - 57 197 EUR.
Bernar Venet (b. 1941 in France) had his breakthrough in 1966 when he moved to New York. Along with Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Joseph Kosuth, and others, Venet rose to prominence in the avant-garde art scene where he combined mathematics and scientific approaches in his work. Today Venet is counted as one of the pioneers of the conceptual movement.
At the beginning of the 1970s, Venet withdrew from his artistic practice and began teaching philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. It wasn’t until 1976 that he returned to making art again.
Using mathematical calculations as a starting point, Venet's sculptures shaped like arcs, angles, and straight lines explore ideas of equilibrium, chance, order, and chaos in relation to their surroundings. His material is corten steel, typically used in industry to build bridges, shipping containers, and furnaces. After a period of exposure, an even and smooth oxide layer (patina) is created on the surface of the steel. Venet believes that there is no other material that absorbs and reflects natural light quite as well as this material.
Bernar Venet’s work is represented in, amongst other places, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Detroit Institute of the Arts.
When is the viewing and auction?
The value of art – A contemporary collection
Viewing: 8 – 13 October, (closed Sunday 11 October), Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Auction: 14 October, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm, 5 pm.
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