Benoît Piéron
Information
Benoît Piéron (born in Ivry-sur-Seine, 1983) creates moments, installations and objects. He is interested in the sensuality of plants, the borders of the body and the temporality of waiting rooms. He practices patchwork, existential gardening and designs wallpapers. Having always lived with a pet illness, the hospital world is his ecosystem. From time to time, he gives workshops on botany and ableism. In the autumn of 2021, he led gardening workshops at the Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, as part of the programming of the exhibition Dead Souls Whisper (1986-1993), devoted to the British artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman. For the past few months, he has been examining the subsistence of unicorns, the place of orgasm in hospitals and lethal flora. He has been nominated for the Pernod Ricard Foundation Award 2022 and has upcoming exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo and the Bourse de Commerce, Paris, France; Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK; MUMOK, Vienna, Austria and Matadero, Madrid, Spain. Since September 2022, he has been in residence for a year in Lens, France, as part of the Pinault Collection’s residency programme.
Previously he was an artist in residence at the Casa de Velazquez, the French academy in Madrid, where he created repetitive patterns used for wallpapers for a year. He also created a silk bed during a residency at the Hermès silk factory.
Benoît Piéron lives and works in Lens, France.
Selected exhibitions include: 2023 (forthcoming): Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK(forthcoming); MUMOK, cur. by Manuela hammer, Vienna, Austria (forthcoming); Liverpool biennial ( forthcoming), Exposé.e.s, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France 2022, Avant l’orage, Bourse de commerce, Pinault Collection, Paris, France
2022: Prix Fondation Pernod Ricard, HORIZONES, Fondation Ricard, Paris, France; Bandage, galerie du Haïdouc à l’Antre Peaux, Bourges, France; Illness Shower, Sultana Summer Set, Arles, France.
Artwork
Benoît Piéron was born with meningitis, and as a result is hemiplegic. Between the ages of three and ten he was treated for leukaemia. In the 1970s and 1980s, 4,689 people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders were infected with HIV and hepatitis viruses through the use of contaminated clotting factors. Piéron was one of these people, and whilst he did not become seropositive, his body became more political.
Four years ago, he returned to the hospital with a cancer that caused myopathy to develop. Reliving his childhood trauma for the second time, he realized that his works – forms that embrace a plasticity and confront disease – are intimately linked to his survival of HIV/AIDS. Through his practice, the guilt he experiences as one of a few survivors is transformed into something generative – a compostable energy that through practices of care and attention renews material detritus into forms that carry the voices, secretions and powers of others.
When his last cancer went into remission, Piéron began assembling hospital-reformed sheets with the help of a phenomenologist friend. Since then, the forms of his patchworks have diversified materializing into toys, beach mats, flags, gymnastics ribbons, floor lamps and armchairs. The colours are softened by the intensive washing the sheets were subjected to. In spite of this hygienic treatment, “clean stains”, the indelible traces of previous uses remain.
Piéron seeks to produce alternative expressions of the disease, instead exploring it as a site of potential. Far from the romantic heroism of the usual metaphors of illness, Piéron places himself in a grey and joyful zone. In a solo show entitled Illness Shower at Sultana Gallery, Piéron viewed the exhibition as a celebration of illness.
CV
Né à Ivry-sur-Seine, 1983.
Vit et travaille à Paris.
EDUCATION
2007
DNSEP, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris
RESIDENCES
2022
Pinault Collection – Artists residency of Lens, Musée du Louvre Lens, Lens, France
2012
Casa de Velazquez, Academie de France à Madrid
2011
Résidence Hermès, Lyon
TALK/EVENTS
2022
Specific Objects without Specific Form, Talk , «Expologie» cur. by Clément Dirié, Collection Lauréat de Prix Pujade-Lauraine • Carta Bianca «Art et Santé : Pour Une Nouvelle Vision Du Monde»
TEXTES
2022
Essay on Louise Bourgeois published in «Louise Bourgeois Transatlantique» edited by Marie Laure Bernadac published by Les Presse du Réel, Sept 2022
SOLO SHOWS
2023
Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (forthcoming)
MUMOK, cur. by Manuela hammer, Vienna, Austria (forthcoming)
2022
Bandage, galerie du Haïdouc à l’Antre Peaux, Bourges, France
Illness Shower, Sultana Summer Set, Arles, France
2021
Deux Drapeaux, Une Belladone, l’alcôve, Paris
PLAID, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
Seconde eau, soft walls, patch.E.S & soap, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
2018
[random], Tanneries,centre d’art contemporain, Amilly, France
GROUP SHOWS
2023
Bourse du commerce, Paris, France (forthcoming)
Palais de Tokyo, cur. by Élisabeth Lebovici & François Piron, Paris, France (forthcoming) Biennale de Liverpool, cur. by Khanyisile Mbongwa, Liverpool, UK (forthcoming)
2022
Paris +, by art Basel, booth F23, Paris.
C’était Mieux Avant, Palais De Tokyo, Paris.
Cottagecore, Galerie Sultana, Paris.
La Deuxième Première Fois Ft. Carla Adra, La Galerie Noisy Le Sec. Horizones, Nominé Pour Le 23 Ème Prix De La Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris. Formes Du Transfert, Fondation Hermès, Magasins Généraux, Pantin.
2021
VIH/Sida L’épidémie N’est Pas Finie, Mucem, Marseille.
FIAC, Mendes Wood, Paris.
Mort Is More, Brasserie Atlas, Bruxelles
Qui Vive, Le Mat, Ancenis
La Mort Comme Performance SM, Mac Lyon
Plantagorie, Cité Internationale Des Arts, Paris
Le Regard Du Temps, Cultur Foundry, Paris
Condensation, L’atelier, Séoul, Corée.
Condensation, Le Forum, Tokyo, Japon.
