Guillaume Bottazzi

Guillaume Bottazzi is a French visual artist, born in 1971, who has had his studio in Brussels since 2012. He has been working for more than 30 years, particularly in Europe, Asia, and the United States.​ Recognized as a pioneer of the neuroaesthetics movement, he has signed more than a hundred artworks for public spaces. He has received private and public commissions from museums such as the Mori Art Museum, the Miyanomori International Art Museum, the Suntory Museum of Art, the Tokyo National Art Center and the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation of History and Culture; from cities such as Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Nice and Brussels; from ministries such as the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Health; from investors such as Sofitel, Mori Building Co. Ltd, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Nexity, and many CAC 40 companies… At the age of 17 he decided to become an artist and to make it his own living which he started in 1990. Since 1992, he has produced highly successful site-specific artworks. His environmental works, realized in situ, indoor or outdoor, are the fruit of a global reflection integrating a variety of parameters, particularly contextual parameters. To date, the artist has been commissioned to create more than a hundred works in public spaces. Guillaume Bottazzi also collaborates with renowned architects, such as Valode & Pistre, Kanji Ueki, Anthony Béchu, Valero Gadan or Tom Sheehan… It is currently consulted on the choice of architects for new programs. Guillaume Bottazzi is also the author of the first educational book to explain modern and contemporary art movements to 7-13-year-old children. This publication is intended as an educational aid. As a child, the painter spent his days in an interior design firm owned by his mother, but his family opposed his decision to become an artist, so he started out living on the streets of Firenze. He began by studying painting in that Italian city, and later moved to New York to study at Baruch College. The artist considers himself to be self-taught. In France, as a competition award winner, he set up in a workshop granted to him by the French Ministry of Culture which he abandons to migrate to the southern. He then left to live and develop his activity in New York where he settled in the 2000s. In New York his artworks have been shown by the Goldstrom gallery and the White Cube’s Annex Gallery. His works are part of the collections of the William Whipple Collection and the Queen Shorough Collection in the USA. Furthermore, Guillaume Bottazzi has participated in exhibitions in Russia, for the National Art Museum in Novosibirsk and for the National Center of Contemporary Art in Moscow. In 2004 Guillaume Bottazzi was artist in residence in Japan where he spent a large part of his time until 2012. In 2010, at the initiative of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation of History and Culture, the Tokyo National Art Center, the Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo Midtown, the Mori Building company Co. Ltd, and the Mori Art Museum, Guillaume Bottazzi created an abstract and monumental artwork of 100 square meters in the center of Tokyo. In 2011 the Miyanomori International Museum of Art in Japan commissioned him to create the largest painting in the country on the museum. An exhibition of Guillaume Bottazzi’s work was organized at the same time. Admissions fees have been donated for the reconstruction of areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The Miyanomori International Museum of Art (MIMAS) has the largest collection of works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Asia and Oceania. The museum collection also includes about 3000 photographs from the artist Daido Moriyama, as well as works by artists such as Lucio Fontana, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Lee Ufan and Guillaume Bottazzi. This event was notably supported by the French Institute and the French Embassy in Japan. In 2012, selected by the Mori Art Museum, the Mori Building company commissioned artworks from the artist Guillaume Bottazzi. They have been incorporated in the new Ark Hills Sengokuyama skyscraper in the heart of the rejuvenated Toranomon district in Tokyo. Since 2004, Guillaume Bottazzi has been represented by Itsutsuji Gallery. This major Japanese gallery has enabled him to establish his style through several artwork commissions. The Itsutsuji Gallery has discovered and represents artists such as Simon Hantaï, Pierre Soulages, Yayoi Kusama, Ay-o, but also introduced movement such as Support-Surfaces, with artists such as Claude Viallat, Daniel Dezeuze and Jean-Pierre Pincemin, as well as Pierre Buraglio, Gérard Titus-Carmel and Guillaume Bottazzi. He was invited to take part in the Marseille Provence 2013, European Capital of Culture year events. The artist produced a 36 m² artwork . This project was supported by the French Embassy in Belgium. In 2015, he created a 216 m² painting in Paris La Défense, facing the D2 tower. He has also collaborated with Artiscope Gallery for many years. In 2012, this major gallery broke the record for an auction in France and has introduced many protagonists of the art scene from Arte Povera, such as Alighiero Boetti, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto and from Transavantgarde, such artist as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Mimmo Paladino. Guillaume Bottazzi has also received commissions from the European countries and China, where he was a guest of “French May” in Hong Kong in 2016, event supported by the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau in partnership with the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. In a 565 square meters space, this exhibition participates to one of the largest cultural events in Asia which got 1,7 million visitors. In a public space in Brussels, with the city, the European Commission and with the support of the French Embassy in Belgium, he created a 16 metres high painting that now forms part of the heritage of Brussels-Capital. Guillaume Bottazzi’s aim is to give art back its presence, a presence that has gradually disappeared from our daily lives since the end of the 1930s. In 2023, forty of his in situ works were presented for the 40th European Heritage Days. In 2024, he created a 150 m² polyptych in Paris La Défense. Labeled by Paris 2024 for the Cultural Olympiad, it can be seen from the Grande Arche, as an extension of Richard Serra‘s sculpture. The work is part of the largest open-air art trail in France. From Alexander Calder to Joan Miró, César, Daniel Buren and Takis, the greatest artists have left their mark on the business district. Guillaume Bottazzi has set up his own House of Creation, similar to a House of Haute Couture. The designer collaborates with teams of fitters, craftsmen, glassmakers, electricians and technicians whose reputation for excellence is second to none. His highly successful backlit and site-specific works are sold to CAC 40 companies and many renowned architects.