
PORTRAIT - Julien Creuzet, artist at the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024
Julien Creuzet represents France at the 60th Biennale di Venezia - International Art Exhibition in 2024.
Updated on 24/04/2024
5 min
Born in 1986 in Blanc-Mesnil, Julien Creuzet spent his childhood in Martinique, and currently lives and works in Montreuil. He trained at the ÉSAM in Caen, the ENSBA in Lyon, and at Le Fresnoy in Tourcoing. His work combines sculpture, music, video and poetry in installations that have often been described as archipelagos. His ambitious body of work, which overlaps narratives, marginalised histories, legacies and materials, has gained international recognition.
His work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at LUMA Westbau (2023) and LUMA Arles (2022), at the Palais de Tokyo (2019), and at the Pernod-Ricard Foundation (2018). He is the winner of the Étant Donnés 2022 prize organised by the Villa Albertine and the Committee Professionnel des Galeries d'Art, the BMW Art Journey 2021 Prize and was nominated for the 2021 Marcel Duchamp Prize. He is represented by the galleries High Art (Paris), Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York) and Document (Chicago). He is also head of the sculpture studio at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Martinique is the starting point for his reflections: an alternative cartography of the world and a transnational dialogue based on Afro-diasporic politics, knowledge and beliefs. The place of memory, ancestrality and the fluid temporality of past, present and future are central to the construction of a landscape where collective efforts of resistance give rise to an idealised and liberated community. In his own words, it is a matter of "colliding diverse geographies and temporalities, and weaving past and present narratives to tell the story in small details" through real or imagined narratives
His work is part of a generation of contemporary artists from Martinique and the Caribbean, whose place in art history is often ignored and who claim a new and critical place in the discourse on identity.
His installations breathe new life into the contemporary anti-colonial narrative and invite us to experience moments of joy and sharing. Julien Creuzet offers poetic and aesthetic forms in which new relationships between objects, stories and languages are created. They can appear still or in movement: colours, sounds and voices animate them, while the rhythm of the words in the titles defines them.
The selection committee of the French Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2024 was particularly drawn to "his work, where poetry infuses with strength and generosity a plurality of practices: sculpture, text, video, music, performance, and even new technologies."
Julien Creuzet represents France at the 60th Biennale di Venezia - International Art Exhibition in 2024 with a brand new exhibition. His curatorial team is composed of Céline Kopp, director of the Magasin - CNAC in Grenoble, and Cindy Sissokho, curator and writer based in the United Kingdom.

Key dates
1986: Born in Blanc-Mesnil.
2013: Graduates from Le Fresnoy Studio.
2013: Solo exhibition at the Dohyang Lee Gallery.
2018: Solo exhibition at the Pernod-Ricard Foundation.
2018: Solo exhibition at Bétonsalon - Centre d'Art et de Recherche.
2019: Solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo.
2021: Nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize.
2022: Solo exhibition at Camden Art Centre.
2022: Solo exhibition at LUMA Arles.
2023: Solo exhibition at LUMA Westbau.
2023: Participation in the 12th edition of the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art.
2023: Solo exhibition at Le Magasin - CNAC, curated by Céline Kopp and Cindy Sissokho.
2024: He represents France at the 60th Biennale di Venezia - International Art Exhibition in 2024.

The French Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia - International Art Exhibition is implemented by the Institut français on behalf of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture.