On the proposal of the selection committee chaired by Chiara Parisi, Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs and Rima Abdul Malak, Minister of Culture, selected Julien Creuzet to represent France at the 60th International Art Exhibition – The Biennale di Venezia in 2024.
Photographer: Anne Ribaut
The selection committee unanimously chose Julien Creuzet: “for his work, where poetry infuses with strength and generosity a plurality of practices: sculpture, text, video, music, performance, even new technologies. These different elements compose immersive and multi-sensory worlds animated by whispered memories. His singular work and his gift for oral literature feed on creolisation by bringing together a diversity of materials, stories, shapes and gestures. The questions raised by his works will find, at the French Pavilion in Venice, a particularly important resonance with those of our time. Julien Creuzet was also chosen for the horizons he draws, going beyond the opposition between identity and universality, demonstrating that in the folding of art, the poetic and artistic echoes always trace responses that are as beautiful, joyful and restorative as they are unexpected.”
Julien Creuzet is a visual artist, videographer, performer and poet, born in 1986 in Blanc Mesnil. He lives and works in Montreuil. He spent most of his childhood in Martinique. These first years in the Caribbean, at the crossroads of African, Indian and European cultures, permeate a work in which the mixture of imaginations holds a central place. Passed by the Superior School of Arts & Media of Caen/Cherbourg and by the National Superior School of Fine Arts of Lyon, he also graduated, in 2013, from Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Arts. He teaches at the Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Julien Creuzet has presented his work in several personal exhibitions, including recently at LUMA Arles (2022); Camden Arts Centre, London (2020); CAN Art Center Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2019); VR Arles Festival as part of the exhibition outside the Palais de Tokyo on the occasion of the Rencontres d’Arles (2018); Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard et Bétonsalon – center for art and research, Paris; NaMiMa gallery of the National School of Art and Design of Nancy (2016) and Frac Basse-Normandie, Caen (2015). His work has also been presented in numerous group exhibitions: “Today will take place”, an exhibition outside the Palais de Tokyo as part of the 12th Gwangju Biennial (2018); “The center cannot hold”, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, 2018; “A Cris Ouverts” 6th edition of the Ateliers de Rennes, biennial of contemporary art (2018); at the Bamako Encounters, 11th African Photography Biennial (2017); at the 14th Lyon Biennale (2017); at the Frac Pays de la Loire (Carquefou, 2016) or at La Galerie, contemporary art center (Noisy-le-Sec, 2015).
He is the winner of the 2022 Given Given Prize organised by the Villa Albertine and the Professional Committee of Art Galleries, of the 2021 BMW Art Journey Prize and nominated for the 2021 Marcel Duchamp Prize. He is represented by High Art (Paris), Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York), Document (Chicago).
The French Pavilion at the International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is implemented by the French Institute on behalf of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture. For more information, please visit the French Institute.
