(born in Chateau-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, France in 1941)
84 Arcs/Disorder (12 elements), 2013, rolled steel, 28 x 33.5 x 13 cm (each/approx.) site-specific dimensions, (12)

Certificate by the Artist, Bernar Venet Studio Archives, New York, signed Bernar Venet, 29.3.2016 and registered in the artist’s archives under inventory no. bv13ss30.

Provenance:
Studio of the artist
Gallery Guy Pieters, Knokke
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia - acquired from the above in 2015

Literature:
Becherer, Joseph Antenucci, Bernar Venet - Maquettes,
Ed Fondation Regards de Provence, Marseille 2013,
cover illustration and pp. 6–7 (colour ill.)

See:
Thierry Davila, Erik Verhagen, Bernar Venet, Sculpture, Paris 2013,
p. 156ff and p. 224f (colour ill. of the big sculptures, Le Pharo, Marseille, 2013)

Exhibited:
La Fondation Regards de Provence, Marseille, Bernar Venet,
28.6. - 13.10.2013

“[…] Bernar Venet’s maquettes foreshadow the final full-scale work, whilst also possessing a sculpural authenticity and integrity of their own. Perhaps more than any of his sculptures, the maquettes are able to establish an intimate relationship with the viewer, provoking a response that is quite different from that of a more monumental sculptural style. […] Like the soft whisperings of lovers, Venet’s masterful maquettes speak in hushed tones to the viewer and only him.”
Bernar Venet, Maquettes, Ed. Fondation Regards de Provence,
Exhibition catalogue Musée Regards de Provence, Marseille, 28 June - 6 October 2013

The Marseille-based association “L’art prend l’air” commissioned Bernar Venet to construct a huge work of art for the park of the Palais du Pharo in Marseille. Bernar Venet developed the piece 84 Arcs/Disorder for the park. The arcs are up to four and a half metres tall and are bundled together in groups of 6 to 8 bars of corten steel. They cross over each other and drift away from each other; they are chaotically staggered and allow the viewer to get lost in them and walk through them. Bernar Venet was personally fascinated by the broadness of perspective in the park of Palais du Pharo, the green of the lawns meeting the horizon and the interplay of his red sculptures with the green of the lawns and the blue of the sky.
The twelve maquettes that make up 84 Arcs/Disorder offer a particularly attractive insight into Bernar Venet’s way of working. The artist starts by creating meticulous primary sketches for every single one of his works, then proceeds to work with rolled steel, which he generally leaves blank. In the final step, he shapes the steel into maquettes. They are not to be seen as a mere developmental step on the way to creating the larger sculpture, but rather as an independent, smaller work of art, like a valuable piece of jewellery.