Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website Julien Creuzet starts BMW Art Journey 2021. Artist based in France searches for the unexpected among the familiar roots of his ancestors in Martinique
july 26, 2021 - BMW

Julien Creuzet starts BMW Art Journey 2021. Artist based in France searches for the unexpected among the familiar roots of his ancestors in Martinique

Munich/Basel/Paris. BMW Art Journey winner 2021 Julien Creuzet, represented by High Art, Paris, started the first part of his BMW Art Journey on July 15, 2021. In Martinique, he will explore the unexpected and surprising in the familiar environment of his ancestors.

The BMW Art Journey is part of BMW Group’s global cultural engagement, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Committed in the fields of modern and contemporary art, classical music, jazz and sound as well as architecture and design, the BMW Group has been an integral part of culture on a global scale.

Inspired by the Martinican thinker, critic and poet Édouard Glissant who had written about the concept of creolization, “It is a mixture of arts, customs and languages ​​that produces the unexpected,” Creuzet will make five trips in total to the Antillean islands Martinique and Guadeloupe between July 2021 and Spring 2022.

Creuzet himself was raised in Martinique, but never had the chance to work there. About his BMW Art Journey he says: “I strive to make my contribution, to give back by offering my experience and a place, a living world, a workstation for long-term experimentation. My journey is related to a long-time project that I had in mind, but I was never able to realize it. It is a good opportunity for me to return and to re-connect with my native land. I have shown and shared my practice and perspective around the world, but never in the land of my ancestors.”

During his BMW Art Journey Julien Creuzet will focus on three artistic projects around the geographically and culturally distinct region of the Antilleans. Filming landscapes, underwater scenes, and local festivals such as carnival, on the ground and with drones, he will create a video in collaboration with local contemporary artists and musicians.

A second project is an eight months-long workshop with the art students of Beaux-Arts de Fort-de-France (Campus Caribbean des Arts), opening a studio for their artistic work. One focus of the workshop will be about the creation of “bwadjacks” – sculptures made of modified cars and materials which are usually found on scrapyards, in a gesture of circularity.

Lastly, Creuzet will work on a project with the local fauna of the Antilleans. Drawing inspiration from natural forms, he aims to create new hybrid sculptures recycling plastic and other materials. The results of his BMW Art Journey are expected to be shown during Art Basel in Hong Kong in 2022.