Clément Bedel (b. 1993) is a French painter based in Vienna, Austria. He grew up in “Les Vosges”, a rural region in eastern France characterized by extensive forests and sparse human presence, an environment that continues to influence his work. After graduating (MA) from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Nancy in 2017, he continued his training at the Fakultet Likovnih Umetnosti in Belgrade, where he lived and worked from 2016 to 2020.
Favoring painting, Clément Bedel creates hybrid compositions that capture suspended moments between collapse and rebirth. His vibrant, incisive works, evoke a world in mutation where the resilience of nature defies the idea of extinction. Intense streams of color, symbolizing pollution, merge with plants, trees and brutalist relics in perpetual transformation. Filamentous fungi, algae and cyanobacteria colonize these ghostly landscapes, reinterpreting human ruins as emerging ecosystems.
These multi-metabolic landscapes disrupt conventional perceptions of time as linear, aligning with Timothy Morton’s theorization of hyperobjects, entities with temporal and spatial dimensions so vast that they defy our usual conceptions.
As sociologist Nikolaj Schultz observes:
“I am not an art critic, but it strikes me that this is what is at stake in Bedel’s paintings, and what I myself—under the term ‘new existentialism’—have elsewhere suggested philosophy must now explore: how the human moral-existential landscape appears fragmented, torn apart by its own ecological weight. Yet the power of theory pales in comparison to that of art. Paintings, especially, have always been essential in exploring the human condition and in attuning us to its shifting contours—no matter how unsettling the vision may be. Hence the significance of a new generation of painters like Clément Bedel, and of works like these, which confront the altered shape of the individual and collective human condition in the era of climate crisis.”
Bedel has taken part in numerous group shows in France, Germany and Serbia, as well as artist residencies in Leipzig (2019) and Istanbul (2020). He has presented solo exhibitions at U10 ArtSpace, Belgrade (2021), Centre Culturel de Serbie in Paris (2022), Galerie Hestia, Belgrade (2023), Eisenwerk Frauenfeld, Switzerland (2023) and WUK Vienna (2025).
EDUCATION
2017-2019 Guest Student, Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
2012-2017 DNSEP (MFA) École nationale supérieure d’art et de design, Nancy, France
2016 Exchange programme, Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Coming up
2025 October 9th - November 21th 2025 Focus on, Kandlhofer gallery, Vienna, Austria 2025 September - October Solo booth with Fantoplast, Vienna Design Fair, Vienna, Austria
Past
2024 Echoes of Impermanence, WUK Projektraum, Vienna, Austria
2023 Hanging by a Thread, Duo exhibition with Anna von Siebenthal, curated by Zeren Oruc, Eisenwerk, Frauenfeld, Switzerland 2023 Radiant as the End of the World, Hestia, Belgrade, Serbia
2021 On the other side of the Sea, U10 ArtSpace, with the support of the Institut Français de Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
2019 Biennale MULHOUSE 019, la jeune création dans l’art contemporain, Mulhouse, France 2019 Shimmering through reality, Kulturni Centar Grad, curated by Alexandar Stojanovic, Belgrade, Serbia
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Coming up
2025 October - Shelter, Galleri Christoffer Egelund, Copenhagen, Denmark
Past
2025 Velvet Morning, curated by Martha Kirszenbaum, 24 Beaubourg, Paris, France
2022 Istanbul Contemporary fair, Hestia, Istanbul, Turkey 2022 Both sides now, curated by Samuele Visentin, One Room Gallery, London, UK 2022 ArtKarlsruhe fair, Galerie Imke Valentien, Karlsuhe, Germany 2022 L’appétit des ruines, Centre Culturel de Serbie, Paris, France 2022 La peinture, une bonne résolution, Galerie Vis-à-Vis, Metz, France 2022 Botanica, Fondation François Schneider, Wattwiller, France
2021 My favorite object, Galerie Hestia, Belgrade, Serbia 2021 hIAtus, curated by Emmanuelle Potier, Puzzle, Thionville, France 2021 Bijenale Mladih, Pavilion Cvijeta Zuzorić Belgrade, Serbia
2019 Intervencije 15, Magacin u Kraljevića Marka, Belgrade, Serbia 2019 Collaboration with Louis-Cyprien Rials, Au pied du gouffre, Galerie Dohyang LEE, Paris, France 2019 Hungry Dungeon Friends, KKW, Leipzig, Germany 2019 Grateful park, PILOTENKUECHE, Leipzig, Germany 2019 Pokloni se lI, Galerie TransformArt, Belgrade, Serbia
2018 United, Galerie Ostavinska, Belgrade, Serbia 2018 Završna izložba, Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, Serbia 2018 Interstices des bords / bords des interstices, Galerie NaMiMa, Nancy, France 2018 Festival International du Court Métrage, Clermont-Ferrand, France 2018 VISION, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France