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Bernar Venet: Angles

Past exhibition
April 28 – June 25, 2016 515 West 27th Street, New York
  • About the Artist
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  • Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to present Bernar Venet's exhibition, Angles, on view from April 28 – June 18, 2016 at 515 W. 27th Street, New York.

    The conceptual artist’s inaugural solo show at the gallery unveils a brand new series of large-scale Angles. The exhibition features four cor-ten steel sculptures, each an assemblage of acute angles of varying heights and differing angular degrees, some extending across the horizontal axis and others stretching vertically. Intended for indoor or outdoor installation, the sculptures work to define the spaces in which they are positioned. The scope of the new series is further articulated with the inclusion of smaller sculptural maquettes, offering the viewer insight into the artist’s thought process as he expands the vocabulary and points to new directions in this body of work.

  • Installation view, Bernar Venet: Angles New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, April 28 – June 26, 2016 © 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Installation view, Bernar Venet: Angles New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, April 28 – June 26, 2016 © 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Installation view, Bernar Venet: Angles New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, April 28 – June 26, 2016 © 2016 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Paul Kasmin Gallery. (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
  • To coincide with the exhibition, a monumental sculpture of the same series titled Disorder: 9 Uneven Angles is on view at Union Square Plaza (corner of 17th and Broadway) through June 2016, in collaboration with New York Department of Transportation and the Union Square Partnership. Experienced outdoors, the 24-foot sculpture echoes the endless vectors of city life and draws the viewers' gaze skyward.

    Venet's sculptures have their roots at the turn of the last century. In 1909, the manifesto of Marinetti’s Futurism introduced a new aesthetic, which advocated speed and extolled the values of aggression and destruction. While formal and self-referential, Venet’s works appropriate these qualities. This is witnessed in their differing and varying portrayals of accidents and collapses. The compositions are owed to the interplay of chaos and control, and the synergy between the physical qualities of the steel bars and the force of gravity.

    The use of angles, aggression and directional energy are even more tangible in his most recent works. The acute angles hint at a fictional threat. But foremost, the way in which they are arranged in groups alludes to the repeated development of one angle at different stages of growing, opening, and stretching - as if it were a sequence of movements like Giacomo Balla's study of speed La vitesse abstraite, or of Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase. Thus, the sculptures may be seen as a succession of angles, or as a repetition of the same angle at different stages of its evolution: in different positions, simultaneously represented from different points of view.

     

  • About the Artist

    Bernar Venet

    Bernar Venet

    Bernar Venet first gained recognition in the 1960s for the development of his Tar paintings, Cardboard Reliefs, and his iconic Pile of Coal, a pioneering example of sculpture without a specific shape. The year 1979 marked a significant turning point in Venet’s career: having recently begun a series of wood reliefs, Arcs, Angles, and Straight Lines, he created the first of his Indeterminate Lines and was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.

    Over the following decades his work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe, the United States, South America, and Asia both in solo museum shows, as well as in major art events such as the Kassel Documenta in 1977, and the Biennales of Paris, Venice and São Paulo. To date, he is the most internationally exhibited French artist with 40 public sculpture exhibitions and monumental works permanently installed in cities including Auckland, Austin, Shenzhen, Berlin, Bonn, Denver, Geneva, Neu-Ulm, Nice, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, Toulouse, and Vancouver.

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  • Explore

    • Alma Allen on Park Avenue
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      In Alma Allen's largest outdoor installation to date, ten unique bronze and onyx sculptures including examples reaching over 10 feet tall and realized especially for the exhibition, are on view at eight sites that span the Park Avenue Malls between East 52nd and East 70th Streets.

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509 West 27th Street

New York
Monday–Thursday, 10am–5pm
Friday, 10am–4pm
+1 212 563 4474
info@kasmingallery.com

 

297 Tenth Avenue

New York
Monday–Thursday, 10am–5pm
Friday, 10am–4pm
+1 212 563 4474
info@kasmingallery.com

 

Kasmin Sculpture Garden

New York
On view from The High Line at 27th Street
Monday–Sunday, 7am-11pm
+1 212 563 4474
info@kasmingallery.com

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