Bernar Venet (French, b. 1941)
1B (+) (17/24), 2001
2-color silkscreen on Arches watercolor, hot press, 640 gsm paper
22 x 30 in
$1,500
Signed and dated, lower right; numbered “17/24”, lower left.
In excellent condition with vibrant colors.
This print is unique in the fact that there is a caption included in the work helping to explain what we are viewing. Like all of Venet’s work, the subject matter is mathematical. “A parametric ordinary differential equation of the first order in two dimensions” refers a field equation which is in the form of y + P(x)y=Q(x). The arrows are a mathematical representation of the three attributes of a field: gradient, divergence, and curl. Venet is fully aware that most viewers of his work will not understand the mathematical concepts behind it. However, he is also aware the mathematicians and physicists will view his work and understand something that he may have not even intended to portray. To Venet, this is the beauty of mathematics: they can mean only one thing. It is simply our understanding of art that is stretched or altered by his monosomic images. By creating visual work that is not representative of human emotions, Venet believes that he has asserted a solution to an artistic problem. He has taken the self out of his art.