Patrick Mimran (born 1956 in Paris, France) is a contemporary French multimedia artist, composer, and the former CEO of Lamborghini. He is most widely known for Lamborghini's turn-around in the early 1980s and his art exhibit, "The Billboard Project". [1]
Before becoming an artist, Patrick Mimran was the owner and CEO of Lamborghini. In 1981, at the age of 24, Mimran and his brother, Jean Claude, purchased the company's failing assets for US$3 million. The brothers had purchased the company out of receivership by 1984 and began investing heavily in the company's expansion, developing a comprehensive restructuring program. Under the Mimrans' management, Lamborghini's model line was expanded from the Countach to include the Jalpa sports car and the LM002 off-road vehicle. [2] Patrick served as CEO until 1987 when he sold the company to Chrysler. [1] [2]
After years as a successful businessman, Mimran turned to art. Mimran's artwork has ranged through media including painting, photography, video art, sculpture, and installations. Mimran's work has been exhibited in museums including the Leonardo da Vinci Museum for Science and Technology, [3] Palazzo Venezia [4] and Kunstpalais Erlangen, [5] as well as festivals including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Art Cologne, Art Paris and Art Karlsruhe. [6]
He also works in electronic music, composing the score for Maurice Béjart’s ballet Kurozuka[3] (performed at the Bunkan Kalkan Theatre, Tokyo)[4] and collaborating with Peter Greenaway. Mimran composed scores for Greenaway projects including the multidisciplinary film and art installation "Stairs 1 Geneva", the 1996 film, The Pillow Book , the 1996 public art event "La Cosmologia di Piazza del Popolo Roma", and the art installation, "In the Dark", which was featured in the 1996 exhibition, "Spellbound: Art and Film" at the Hayward Gallery of London. [7] In addition to musical scores, Mimran has released four albums. Novels For The Moons (1981), his first album, was heavily influenced by German electronic pioneers and released on the imprint Lamborghini Records. [8] He subsequently released Back to Earth (1983), [9] Honni Soit – Qui Mal Y Pense (1987) with vocalist James Bowman, [10] and Service Entrance (2017), a collection of soft piano music.
Mimran's "Jet Set Giraffe" sculpture, standing at 7.5 meters, is considered the tallest giraffe sculpture in the world. [11] It was installed in the Monte Carlo's Grand Casino Garden from 2009 to 2013, when it was moved to its permanent home at the Colchester Zoo in Essex, England. The giraffe, made of glass fiber and steel, appears to be solid metallic silver but transforms into a silhouette lit by 214 colorful lights at night. [12]
Patrick Mimran is best known in the United States for his Billboard Project, a comprehensive series of billboards which he initiated in 2000 in London and later expanded to New York, Miami, Venice, and Tokyo. For the project, Mimran used advertisement billboards as a platform for short aphorisms that provided commentary about art and the relationships between artists, critics, curators and art dealers. The billboards attracted a fan base. [13]
In 2015, Mimran turned 25 of his paintings into wearable art by developing the cashmere scarf line, Allezzou Fashion.
Mimran recently developed the Aphos App, a digital rendition of his "Billboard Project" which allows users anywhere in the world to create their own boards with quotes, aphorisms, and comments about art, politics, news, fashion, music, or any subject related to their daily lives and interests. [14]
Arman was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman was a painter who moved from using objects for the ink or paint traces they leave to using them as the artworks themselves. He is best known for his Accumulations and destruction/recomposition of objects.
John Currin is an American painter based in New York City. He is most recognised for his technically proficient satirical figurative paintings that explore controversial sexual and societal topics. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and contemporary fashion models. He often distorts or exaggerates the erotic forms of the female body, and has stressed that his characters are reflections of himself rather than inspired by real people.
Vladimir Dubossarsky (1964) is a Russian painter working in pop art genre.
Ludovico De Luigi is a contemporary Italian sculptor and painter born and living in Venice, Italy.
Piero Golia is a conceptual artist based in Los Angeles.
Jeffrey Isaac is a painter and video artist. His style often uses photorealism as a means to a conceptual inquiry of fantastical content with an absurdist approach.
Ettore Tito was an Italian artist particularly known for his paintings of contemporary life and landscapes in Venice and the surrounding region. He trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and from 1894 to 1927 was the Professor of Painting there. Tito exhibited widely and was awarded the Grand Prize in painting at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. In 1926 he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Italy. Tito was born in Castellammare di Stabia in the province of Naples and died in Venice, the city which was his home for most of his life.
Eugenio Da Venezia was an Italian painter. He was a member of the group known as I Giovani di Palazzo Carminati. This group rejected the prevailing style of the Italian Academy at the beginning of the 20th century. Da Venezia painted in a post-impressionist style, influenced by the Venetian tradition of the vedutisti. He exhibited in ten editions of Venice Biennale between 1934 and 1956, including the XL anniversary in 1935.
Jorge Piqueras was a visual artist born in Peru and with Peruvian and Spanish nationality. Jorge Piqueras is recognized as one of the most important Peruvian artists of the twentieth century. Among contemporary Latin American artists, he stands out as a pioneer in geometric painting, as well as for his distinctive sculptural production. Piqueras’ work covers a wide range of materials and media, including sculpture, painting, collage, photography and assemblage.
Paolo Canevari is an Italian contemporary artist. He lives and works in New York City. Canevari presents highly recognizable, commonplace symbols in order to comment on such concept as religion, the urban myths of happiness or the major principles behind creation and destruction.
The Museo Fortuny or Fortuny Museum is an art museum in San Marco, in central Venice, Italy.
Melik Ohanian is a French contemporary artist of Armenian origin. He lives and works in Paris and New York City. His work has been shown in many solo exhibitions including Galerie Chantal Crousel, Centre Pompidou and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, South London Gallery in London, De Appel in Amsterdam, IAC in Villeurbanne, Yvon Lambert in New York, Museum in Progress in Vienna, and Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile.
Claudio Costa was a Contemporary Artist from the 1970s avant-garde movement.
Maurizio Nannucci is an Italian contemporary artist. Lives and works in Florence and South Baden, Germany. Nannucci's work includes: photography, video, neon installations, sound installation, artist's books, and editions. Since the mid-sixties he is a protagonist of international artistic experimentation in Concrete Poetry and Conceptual Art.
Ernesto Treccani was a visual artist, writer and political activist.
Barry X Ball is an American sculptor who lives and works in New York City.
The Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (IVSLA) is an academy of sciences in Venice.
Sergio Ceccotti is an Italian painter. He lives and works in Rome.
Paolo Ventura is an Italian photographer, artist and set designer based in Milan.
Versus Medici is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982. The artwork, which references the Medici family, sold for $50.8 million at Sotheby's in May 2021.