Bertrand Lavier

Born in 1949 in Châtillon-sur-Seine (Côte-d’Or). Lives and works in Aignay-le-Duc (Côte-d’Or) and Paris.

Bertrand Lavier is a worldwide known French visual artist that works with sculpture, painting, photography and ready-made. First trained as a horticulturist, the artist has developed an interest in the artistic practice in the late 1960’s. Influenced by Marcel Duchamp and the French art movement “Nouveau Réalisme” Bertrand Lavier is concerned with the relationship between art and daily life as well as art status quo by exhibiting everyday objects in art institutions. Through the diversion of objects, Bertrand Lavier operates a new form of language, which speaks for art itself, questioning the very idea of sculpture by playing with the meaning of a pedestal, or playing with the meaning of painting by, for instance, covering objects with paint.
His practice highlights the codes of artistic representation through a body of artworks that is both highly intellectual and humorous.

Bertrand Lavier’s work has been part of numerous solo and group exhibitions such as the Centre Pompidou,France; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; the Louvre Museum, France; the Musée d’Orsay, France; the Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo; Tate Gallery and Serpentine Gallery, London, Haus der Kunst, Munich; Pinault Collection, Venice and Paris; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; MoMA PS1, New York; the Maison Hermès, Seoul and LVMH Foundation in Tokyo among many others.

His work is part of important collections such as Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Rijsksmuseum, Amsterdam; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo (MOMAT), Tokyo; Mamco – musée d ́art moderne et contemporain, Geneva; MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d ́Art Moderne, Paris; Fondation LVMH, Paris; Pinault Collection, Paris among others.