Bernar Venet Studio, Le Muy
"In the context of my sculptural work on the theme of “the line,” the “indeterminate line” is of central importance. Up to 1979, my activity was based on principles which accorded considerable importance to the presentation of “mathematical objects” such as arcs, angles and straight lines. Their measurements in degrees were written directly on the works.
My art making is a kind of conceptual mold that allows me to explore a range of disciplines, including sculpture, painting, photography, language, and drawing. The drawings followed in the wake of far more raw and expressive work on paper that I began at the time of my first sculptures in 1983, the Indeterminate Lines. These works are simultaneously drawings, collages, and oil pastels, once again done from the photos I shoot myself when one of my pieces of sculpture is finished. I often see them as studies that help me to grasp what is most interesting in my sculptures, whether the most original points of view, or the rightness of their proportions, or the potential of their configurations. As I worked on them, I would also bring out certain points of view for their graphic quality in particular.
These drawings often allowed me to discover aspects of my sculpture that later steered my work in new directions. They represent both an equivalence and an exploration, qualities that remain the drawings’ best justification."
Bernar Venet