Pierre Bismuth (F)

Pierre Bismuth (b. 1963, Paris, lives in Brussels and London) studied at the Ecole national supérieure des arts (Ensad) in Paris. His work, which includes drawings, collages, special editions and videos, is often based on the principle of the deconstruction of prevailing patterns of perception. To this end he uses existing material such as pictures from newspapers and magazines, and film and sound extracts, which he takes as ready-mades and decontextualises. For example, at 'Manifesta 4' in Frankfurt (2002) he created a 'Babylonian' version of the Disney classic 'Jungle Book', in which every character speaks in a different language (Mowgli speaks only Spanish, the panther Bagheera Arabic, the tiger Shere Khan English, the devious snake Kaa Italian, the elephants German and the insistent vulture Dutch). In 2005 he was nominated for the Oscar for best film script as a co-the scriptwriter on the Hollywood production 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (directed by Michel Gondry, with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet). In the summer of 2005 the Kunstmuseum Thun will be devoting a first retrospective exhibition to his work. As an artist, he is represented by the Lisson Gallery in London and Galerie Jan Mot in Brussels.