Stéphane Barbier Bouvet

Stéphane Barbier Bouvet’s way of approaching his subjects bears a resemblance to themethodology of the critic, the curator, the designer, and the sculptor. His work unfolds, simultaneously, as an application (of techniques and principles), a form of knowledge (of the history of design, art, and exhibitions), and a comment (on our relation to the production, dissemination, and circulation of objects).

Stéphane Barbier Bouvet (°1981 in Marseille, lives and works in Brussels) develops different projects, often in the form of a site-specific response to a given situation. Stéphane Barbier Bouvet graduated at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in 2006, where he soon after opened 1m3, an independent exhibition platform with Benjamin Valenza, Jeanne Graff, and Adrien Missika. Together with Benjamin Valenza, he also initiated Kaiser Kraft, a construction program that works on contracts within the art field. He co-founded the Dirty Art Department at Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and has taught classes at different institutions including École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Hochschule für Künste in Bremen. He is currently guest tutor at the Design Academy in Eindhoven (Master Social Design).

Over the past years, Barbier Bouvet participated in a wide range of self-initiated, solo, collective and commissioned projects and exhibitions, including most recently the solo shows Design as we Speak at Zaventem Ateliers, After Service at La Loge, Brussels and the traveling exhibition Dating Greek and other beauties at HEAD, Geneva, La Fabbrica, Ascona and La Rada, Locarno. Recent group exhibitions and projects include 1977, une exposition du 40e anniversaire du Centre Pompidou, Centre d’Art de l’Onde, Vélizy; Potemkine Palace, The National Gallery, Sofia and Performing Knowledge at Diensgebäude, Zürich.