The exhibition will also include a text, to be produced during a performance at the gallery. Two of the patterns were produced using elements of the German poet Justinus Kerner's (1786-1862) Klecksographien series. Kerner's drawings were produced using the same ink-blot method as the Rorschach stain. Kerner, however, would augment each stain so as to transform it into an imaginary creature or being, from which he then wrote poems. A third pattern was produced using Francis Galton’s (1822-1911) illustrations to his treatise on fingerprint identification, essentially the first scientific work on biometric identification. A fourth pattern was produced using illustrations from the English caricaturist William Hogarth's (1697-1764) Analysis of Beauty, in which he defends a conception of beauty based on the "serpentine line," i.e. a line which seeks to translate the movements and singular forms of the living world rather than circumscribe or schematize them. A fifth pattern references a series of sketches made using stenographic symbols, produced as advertisements for the Gäbelsberger shorthand method in the early 20th century. The last pattern uses the signature of the artist’s paternal grandfather, Jonas Bismuth, whose initials he shares.
Julien Bismuth (born 1973 in Paris) works and lives in New York. Solo exhibitions include shows at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Sibyl Sybil, La Criée. Centre d'Art Contemporain, Rennes (FR), La Ferme Du Buisson, Marne-la-Vallée, France; Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst (GAK) Bremen, Germany; Emanuel Layr Galerie, Vienna, Austria; The Box, Los Angeles, CA; Crac Alsace, Altkirch, France; Bloomberg Space, London, England and Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris, France.
Bismuth took part in numerous group shows, for example at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; La Nuit Blanche, Paris, France; Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; ICA Philadelphia; 12e Prix Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, Paris, France; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany; Villa Arson, Nice, France; Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France; Orange County Museum, Newport Beach, CA. His performances (often in collaboration) could be seen at such places as MUSAC, Leon, Spain; Tate Modern London, England; and Parasol Unit, London, England. In addition, Bismuth founded the publishing house Devonian Press with Jean-Pascal Flavien in 2005.
This is his forth solo exhibition with Galerie Parisa Kind.