JULIAN CHARRIÈRE

Early Years

Julian Charrière was born in Morges in Switzerland in 1987. Surrounded by the Alps and the Jura, he was drawn to the outdoors at a young age but because he had hip issues, he initially observed nature more than physically engaging with it. He studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, graduating in 2013 from Olafur Eliasson’s Institute for Spatial Experiments, which challenged traditional art-education models.

Julian Charrière: Artworks

Julian Charrière blends science and creativity in his observational, questioning artworks that consider the way the Earth is transforming. He regularly visits extreme territories (from volcanoes to coral reefs to glaciers to radioactive areas) to create art that asks us to use our present circumstances to look back to the climate millions of years ago and imagine what it might look like millions of years into the future. His projects unpack established narratives about human life and the idea of time.

• For his 2014 photographic series Polygon, Charrière visited Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, formerly the USSR’s nuclear test site. He used analogue black-and-white film to capture what remained of the site (monolithic buildings, watchtowers) but before he developed each image, he scattered thermonuclear strata on each negative, echoing an effect discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896 showing how radioactivity affects film.
• Towards No Earthly Pole, which originated in 2019 and was displayed in Dallas in 2021 (among other locations), centred on a video montage that avoided familiar climate-emergency-in-the-Arctic imagery and instead used two drones—one as a spotlight, the other to film—to take footage of glistening, moving glaciers in the pitch dark. Studying ice can teach us about past climates; Charrière also sees this as an opportunity for us to question our own place on the planet.
• At the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, Charrière exhibited 13 clocks encrusted with minerals, phosphates and salts, transforming them from instruments that measure time into “surfaces on which time physically accumulates”. He left the 19th century timepieces in places where they would encounter natural decay, such as waterfalls and limestone caves. The exhibition also included Spiral Economy (2025), a vending machine dispensing fossilised ammonites.

Julian Charrière: Select Awards

• Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize, MOCA, Los Angeles (2024)
• SAM Prize for Contemporary Art, Paris (2022)
• Prix Mobilière, Switzerland (2018)

Julian Charrière: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Ring of Fire, OMR, Mexico City (2026)
• Hard Core, Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania (2026)
• Midnight Zone, Perrotin, Tokyo (2025) (and touring)
• Chorals, Ruinart Crayères, Reims (2025)
• Vertigo. Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles (2025)
• Solarstalgia, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj (2024)
• Controlled Burn, Langen Foundation, Neuss (2023)
• Erratic, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2022)
• Towards No Earthly Pole, Aargauer Kunsthaus (2020) (and touring)
• All We Ever Wanted Was Everything And Everywhere, Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (2019)
• An Invitation to Disappear, Kunsthalle Mainz (2018) (and touring)
• For They That Sow the Wind, Parasol Unit—Foundation of Contemporary Art, London (2016)
• We are All Astronauts, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris (2014)
• Das Numen: Transformation, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin (2013)

Select Group Exhibitions

• The Sixth Extinction, Nevada Museum of Art (2026)
• Call for Action, Boston Public Art Triennial (2025)
• We Will Survive: The Prepper Movement, MUDAC, Lausanne (2024)
• NGC Triennale 2023, Melbourne (2023)
• 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art (2022)
• Come Together, Filmfest Locarno La Rotonda (2021)
• Of Roots and Clouds, Sapporo International Art Festival 2020 (2020)
• Nowness Experiments, The Mesh K11 Art Foundation, Shanghai (2019)
• Ever Since We Crawled Out, Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz (2018)
• Le Rêve des Formes, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2017)
• Desert Now Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles (2016)
• Art Môtiers 2015 (2015)
• The Go-Between, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples (2014)
• Come, All Ye Faithful, Florian Christopher, Zurich (2013)
• Life Clock, Den Frie Centre for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2012)
• 100° Festival, Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (2011)
• Let’s start to implement little errors, Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin (2010)
• Géometria Physiké, Galerie-Atelier Oellermann, Berlin (2008)

Further Reading

• Julian Charrière’s website
• Julian Charrière’s Instagram
• YouTube interview on Louisiana Channel (2025)
• Artist profile page at Perrotin
• 2026 interview in Flash Art

Julian Charrière FAQs

Ocula