Bernard Calet

Bernard Calet was born in Charenton, France, in 1958 and lives and works in Tours. 

Bernard Calet’s artistic practice focuses on a close examination of our environment—and architecture, in particular—as both a reference point and a medium, exploring its spatial, political, and social dimensions. This connection to architecture is expressed through the creation of scale models incorporated into installations, some of which reference domestic space or explore the notion of private space, while others engage directly with the public realm, where his constructions evoke a minimalist aesthetic. Regularly intervening in urban space, Calet’s works make the experience of architecture tangible, revealing its capacity to transform an environment and shape the senses and memory of those who inhabit it.  

Calet continually explores and experiments with new forms of practice, as exemplified by Paysages figurés (2022), a project developed during his residency at Atelier Calder. Taking the form of a film, the work follows a figure moving through a succession of landscapes in France’s Centre region. The sights and soundscapes captured in these places gradually coalesce into a vast imaginary landscape. Using an image compositing technique, fragments of one filmed landscape reappear within the next, merging with the preceding image and giving rise to unexpected connections. Paysages figurés evokes the workings of memory: the subtle traces that persist from one image to another invite viewers to mentally reconstruct a singular landscape of their own. Landscape thus becomes a space for phantasmagorical experimentation and exploration.