As Institut Français announced today, Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak have appointed Julien Creuzet as France’s artistic representative at the upcoming Venice Biennale 2024.

The selection committee, which includes the director of the Center Pompidou-Metz Chiara Parisi, the director of the HKW in Berlin Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Katerina Gregos, artistic director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art EMST in Athens, praised Creuzet’s multidisciplinary approach for « his work, where poetry infuses with strength and generosity a plurality of practices: sculpture, text, video, music, performance, up to new technologies. These different elements compose immersive and multi-sensory worlds animated by whispered memories. »

Julien Creuzet lives and works in Paris. A visual artist and poet, he actively intertwines these two practices via amalgams of sculpture, installation and textual intervention that frequently address his own diasporic experience. Inspired by the poetic and philosophical reflections of Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant on creolization and migration, Creuzet’s work focuses on the troubled intersection of the history of Martinique and the events of European modernity.

Creuzet spent most of his childhood in the Caribbean, at the crossroads of African, Indian and European culture. His life and personal experiences permeate a body of work displaying a diversity of materials, stories, forms and gestures.

The artist will propose a totally new project for the French Pavilion. It will be supported by the Institut français, which will operate the pavilion on behalf of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the French Ministry of Culture.

Creuzet recently won the $20,000 Étant Donnés Prize, which is given to a French artist exhibiting at Art Basel Miami Beach and in 2021 he was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp, France’s top art award.