Pierre Bismuth
Pierre Bismuth lives and works in Brussels. He studied visual communication at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and went to Berlin in the 1980s to study art of painting in the studio of the painter, sculptor and engraver Georg Baselitz. He then returned to Paris and shared his studio with the artists Xavier Veilhan and Pierre Huyghe. In the 1990s, he moved to Brussels and then to London for several years (2000-2005), before settling permanently in Belgium.
In his art studio, Bismuth turns the codes of conceptual art into a topical item and is regularly inspired by film. His work describes the effects of the proliferation of images on everyday life and shows how our imaginations are seized by these codes. His contemporary art questions our perception of reality and humorously attempts to destabilise the keys to reading it, to imbue viewers with a sceptical attitude even towards the most obvious elements in our culture. Moreover, his experience of living in the Belgian capital provides him with a privileged view of the discussions around regionalism, nationalism, languages and communities. Stressing the importance of intuition, spontaneity and the unconscious in the creative process, Bismuth has mastered social themes over time, while the political reading only becomes apparent in retrospect.
His work was earlier exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Metz and Paris (2013, 2021), Witte de With in Rotterdam (1997), the New Museum in New York (2010), Castello di Rivoli in Turin (2010), M HKA in Antwerp (2011) and the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane (2008), among others. In 2005, together with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, he won an Oscar for best original screenplay for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). His work is among the collections of the Musée des Arts Contemporains du Grand-Hornu (MACs), the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, the Museu d'Art Contemporani in Barcelona (MACBA), the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) in France, FRAC Lorraine and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
