[2025 Art Basel Miami] Bernard Frize

5 - 7 December 2025

  • Bernard Frize

    2025 Art Basel Miami

  • Bernard Frize (b. 1949)

    Bernard Frize has, since the late 1970s, pursued a distinct form of abstraction that reconciles order and chance. He establishes predetermined systems and executes them through repetitive, emotionless gestures. Within the horizontal and vertical brushstrokes, accidental color interactions arise, dissolving the painter’s subjectivity and allowing the work to generate its own meaning. The process reveals the rhythmic essence of painting itself. Acting as an invisible mediator, Frize often collaborates with assistants, binds brushes of different sizes, or devises custom tools to produce his works. Over more than four decades, through continuous cycles of creation and dissolution, he has explored freedom through repetition and affirmed his belief in the sustainability of painting.
     
    Bernard Frize was born in Saint-Mandé, France, and lives and works in Paris and Berlin. Since his first solo exhibition at Galerie Lucien Durand, Paris, in 1979, he has held over seventy solo exhibitions worldwide. He gained international recognition after his 2003 solo exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, and his works are included in major public collections such as the Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Tate Modern, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Frize has presented solo shows at institutions including the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Kunsthalle Basel, and Museum Morsbroich. In 2005, he represented France at the Venice Biennale, and in 2011, received the Fred Thieler Prize for Painting. He continues to exhibit internationally, including recent solo shows at Galerie Perrotin and Simon Lee Gallery.