Bertrand Lavier
13 November 2022—8 January 2023
Fosun Foundation, Chengdu, China
From November 13, 2022 to January 8, 2023, Bertrand Lavier first museum-scale solo exhibition in China travels from Fosun Foundation Shanghai to Chengdu. Through dozens of works from seven major series, in a diverse range of mediums including painting, photography, installation, and sculpture, this exhibition provides a comprehensive presentation of this famous French artist's innovative explorations of the relationships between painting and sculpture, expression and abstraction, life and art, through his landmark readymade and appropriation art. With his “Chantiers” or “construction sites,” the artist has created a viewing experience that subverts the traditional two-dimensional gaze, creating an artistic world full of creativity and wonder.
Bertrand Lavier is a towering figure in French contemporary art history, renowned for his use of readymades and appropriation, and is one of the most important postmodernist artists to emerge since Marcel Duchamp. The artist first rose to international attention at the Venice Biennale in 1976. In the 1980s and 90s, he worked with everyday objects, boldly appropriating art history, popular culture, and public images as his creative elements. As curator Michel Gauthier has said,” readymade is no longer a stance, but a style.”