Pierre Bismuth

  • Exhibitions
  • Works
  • Biography
  • Bibliography
  • Texts
  • News

Exhibitions at Jan Mot

20/05/17
Pierre Bismuth
Things I Remember I Have Done, But Don't Remember Why I Did Them - Towards a Catalogue Raisonné
Conversation

05/06/09 - 18/07/09

Pierre Bismuth, Mario Garcia Torres, Annette Kelm, Deimantas Narkevičius

17/12/08
Pierre Bismuth
The End of Silence
Piano: Alain Baents, Performance: Kurt Vanmaeckelberghe
Duration: ca. 25 min.
Part of the Oral Culture series 

08/03/08 - 19/04/08

Pierre Bismuth, Mario Garcia Torres, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Will Holder, David Lamelas, Jonathan Monk, Ian Wilson
Time pieces

Pierre Bismuth - installation view at Jan Mot, 2007
21/10/07 - 27/10/07

Pierre Bismuth
One man's mess is another man's masterpiece

22/04/06 - 20/05/06

Pierre Bismuth
Most Wanted Men
Jan Mot, Brussels

09/12/04 - 29/01/05

Robert Barry, Manon de Boer, Pierre Bismuth, Daniel Buren, Douglas Gordon Joachim Koester, David Lamelas, Jonathan Monk, Mario Garcia Torres, Ian Wilson
Today is just a copy of yesterday

13/03/04 - 30/04/04

Dave Allen, Pierre Bismuth, Dragset & Elmgreen, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Sylvie Fleury, Mario Garcia Torres, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, David Hammons, Isabell Heimerdinger, Jeppe Hein, Carsten Höller, Jonathan Monk
What did you expect?

10/04/03 - 17/05/03

Pierre Bismuth
I agree - the idea of cloning humans is disgusting

27/09/02 - 19/10/02

Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Sven Augustijnen, Richard Billingham, Pierre Bismuth, Manon de Boer, Rineke Dijkstra, Honoré ∂'O, Dora García, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Joachim Koester, Sharon Lockhart, Deimantas Narkevičius, Uri Tzaig, Ian Wilson
New Space Opening Show

23/02/02 - 02/03/02

Joe Scanlan and Pierre Bismuth, Nathan Carter, Rineke Dijkstra, Dora García, Rikrit Tiravanija, Uri Tzaig, Lawrence Wiener
DIY

02/03/00 - 08/04/00

Pierre Bismuth
Collages

03/07/96 - 03/08/96

Pierre Bismuth, Maria Blondeel, Manon de Boer,
Rebecca Bournigault, Adam Chodzko, Michael Curran,
Tracey Emin, Dora García, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster,
Douglas Gordon, Joseph Grigely, Pierre Huyghe,
Renée Kool, David Lamelas, Kobe Matthys,
Wouter van Riessen, Ian Wilson, Zapp magazine
PERFECT

Pierre Bismuth, installation view at Jan Mot, 1996
24/04/96 - 25/05/96

Pierre Bismuth

Works

Pierre Bismuth

Pierre Bismuth
Freedom can be Rescued from Any Closed System, 2011
gouache on paper
160 x 450 cm (installation), 39 x 49 cm (paper, each), 40 x 50 cm (frame, each)
unique

A concise text about the artist’s oeuvre is reworked as a meticulous watercolor painting. The comment becomes the artwork but the unpredeterminate development of its formal elaboration naturally transcends the initial description, taking the work away from standard conceptual tautology.

Pierre Bismuth
Biopic – Jeff Koons, 2014
poster mounted on stainless steel
190 x 135 cm
unique

Pierre Bismuth - Black Painting

Pierre Bismuth
Black Painting – Winnie and the honey, 2007
inkjet and acrylic paint on canvas
175,5 x 141 cm
unique

Pierre Bismuth - coming soon

Pierre Bismuth
Coming Soon – Advent #2, 2011
charcoal on paper, framed
36 x 46,5 cm (image), 61,8 x 81 cm (frame)
unique 

Pierre Bismuth - coming soon collage

Pierre Bismuth
Coming Soon – Owl / Michelangelo, 2014
framed photograph and canvas, mounted on board, vinyl letters on glas
73 x 106 cm
unique

Pierre Bismuth double bass

Pierre Bismuth
Double Bass, 2003
two framed inkjet prints
121 x 93 x 3,5 cm (each)
unique

Bismuth pierre_eau de pluie de bruxelles-web

Pierre Bismuth
Eau de pluie de Bruxelles, 2010
6 red 20 liter containers filled with rainwater, electric cooking plate, cooking pot
34 x 30 x 32 cm (pot on cooking plate), 30 x 38 x 22 cm (container, each)
unique

Rainwater collected in Brussels during the Summer of 2010 that can be evaporated in the air of different locations, suggesting circulation and endless transformation.

Pierre Bismuth
Erased De Kooning Drawing, Robert Rauschenberg 1953 by Fu Site, 2008
unique

In September 2006 Pierre Bismuth contacted the Rauschenberg studio with the aim of asking Robert Rauschenberg to sketch quickly in pencil on a sheet of 43 x 36 cm format, what he could remember from De Kooning’s famous drawing before it was erased. Robert Rauschenberg, who had previously suffered from two strokes, was practically paralysed and ultimately declined the invitation. He died 20 months later and his death definitely marked the failure of this project.

The frustration of never again being able to hope one day to reverse the process of erasing one of the works that most marked him then pushes Pierre Bismuth to tackle Rauschenberg’s work from another angle.

Five months after Rauschenberg’s death he asked a Chinese copyist to reproduce Rauschenberg’s work identically, using all the pictorial techniques that De Kooning had used to make the initial drawing (charcoal, oil, chalk). The copy is then made from an enlarged exhibition catalog image. Pierre Bismuth estimating that the printing screen introduced too much margin of error, he succeeded in obtaining in 2009 from the San Francisco Museum of Art a very high resolution digital document and made from it a second and last copy. in 2010.

Pierre Bismuth
Note d’oro, 2009
rivoli paper, glue, 24 gold leaves
48 x 69 cm
unique

Pierre Bismuth
One Man Show, 2003
video, black and white, sound
6 minutes 24 seconds
edition of 3

Pierre Bismuth, promotional occurences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences
Pierre Bismuth - Promotional Occurrences

Pierre Bismuth
Promotional Occurrences, 2017-2018
video installation consisting of 10 trailers (single or multiple screens installation);merchandising objects (hat, mug, t-shirt, tote bag), dimensions variable
19 minutes 04 seconds
edition of 3 and 1 A.P.
(filmstills and installation view at Kunstmuseum St Gallen, 2017)

In 2016, Pierre Bismuth directed a feature commercial movie titled Where is Rocky II? about a search for a peculiar art work made in the 70's by renowned American artist Ed Ruscha. Promotional Occurrences is a large installation consisting of 10 trailers of Where is Rocky II?. The principle of this work is to try to exhaust all the narrative possibilities of the same feature film. Some sort of excess or overdose of promotional devices impossible to imagine in the real world of the film industry.

Pierre Bismuth

Pierre Bismuth
Script for Royal Road Test, 2011 – ongoing
royal typewriter model #10, paper
dimensions variable

The Royal 10 typewriter was introduced in 1914, the first upright design manufactured by the American company. Over the years, it became one of the most popular models in the typewriter market. Its legendary ruggedness was advertised by stunts in which the company threw crates of typewrites from airplanes to demonstrate that they would survive a fall. Royal typewriters were favourites of writers such as Jack Kerouac, who wrote On the Road on a number 10.

In his artist’s book Royal Road Test, published in 1967, Ed Ruscha recounts the way he set out to the desert in the company of writer and musician Mason Williams and photographer Patrick Blackwell to perform a road test using a Royal 10. While cruising at 90 miles per hour, Williams threw the typewriter from a car window. The resulting wreck is meticulously explored throughout the book.

Pierre Bismuth’s piece presents a Royal 10 typewriter flanked by two piles of paper, one written. A sheet of paper is placed in the typewriter, presenting the most recent additions to an ongoing script containing a page-by-page cinematic script for Ruscha’s book.

Pierre Bismuth

Pierre Bismuth
Various Colors in Black and White – Pantone Process Cyan, 2005
silkscreen of offset paper
103 x 73 cm (frame), 99 x 69 cm
unique

This work is part of the serie of works titled Various Colors in Black and White, for which Pierre Bismuth translated a variation of Pantone colors in black and white.

Biography

Pierre Bismuth

Born in Paris in 1963
Lives and works in Brussels

View full biography

Bibliography

News

18/09/20

Pierre Bismuth's work Coming Soon is published on the website of the David Roberts Art Foundation (Click here)

Coming Soon is a fast-paced compilation of the closing seconds of film trailers. It is a familiar final visual in trailers when the alluding, though vague, words ‘coming soon’ are blasted across cinema screens. Bismuth’s compilation is made up of motion pictures by many of the large American film studios and production companies, discernable by the logos that accompany the phrase. Where it is possible to decipher what film is being referred to they are all major motion pictures released around 2002-03, including Johnny English, the original Jackass: The Movie, and the only ‘coming soon’ that is accompanied by moving image; Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal.