Bernar Venet (born in 1941 in Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, France) is one of the major figures of contemporary conceptual and minimalist art. After studying briefly at the Villa Thiole in Nice, he began, in the early 1960s, a radical approach grounded in formal rigor, mathematical reasoning, and experimentation.

Early on, he turned away from expressionism to produce non-representational works such as tar paintings and piles of raw materials: most notably, a heap of coal poured directly onto the gallery floor. In 1966, he moved to New York, where he became part of the avant-garde circle and built close relationships with Arman, Tinguely, Judd, and Sol LeWitt.

In the 1980s, Venet shifted toward large-scale steel sculptures known as Indeterminate Lines, installed in major cities around the world (Versailles, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, San Francisco…).

Rejecting external inspiration, Venet views his art as self-generative, each piece giving rise to the next.
Awarded the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2005, he initiated the creation of the Venet Foundation in 2014, a space dedicated to archiving and promoting his work.