Bernar Venet. A Lifetime of Art. Witnesses to Art Collection.

Bernar Venet is a French artist renowned worldwide, particularly for his gigantic steel sculptures erected in public spaces. Born in 1941 into a modest family in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region, he developed a passion for art from an early age and rose brilliantly to the top of his profession—first in Nice, where he became friends with Arman, then in New York, where he settled in 1966 and where he would become one of the inventors of conceptual art.
Catherine Francblin gained access to the archives held at the Venet Foundation in the Var region and to the artist's countless letters to his mother, in which he describes the developments of his career and his encounters with major figures, from Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol and Christo. Drawing also on her interviews with him, the author sheds light on and explains the various turning points in the art and life of a man who, driven by the ambition to surpass himself, constantly reinvented himself.