Elsa Werth

Elsa Werth (born 1985) is a French artist who lives and works in Paris.

Biography Elsa Werth was born in 1985 in Paris, France. She graduated from both the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs where she studied film animation and École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. She was awarded the price Humankind Leo Burnet in 2013 and the 23rd Pernod Ricard Foundation Prize for contemporary art in 2022.

Work Elsa Werth's practice includes installation, sculpture, video, artist's books, and sound pieces. She has exhibited since 2013 in France, U.S., China, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.

Her work focuses on the use of common objects and gestures, systems, language, traditional and contemporary rituals. The interpretation of information and commodity production, as well as their relations to the social circles, are the key approaches to her projects. She uses alternative modes of exchange and expression to contradict a world she considers subject to the cult of material values. Her works are always made with simple means to escape spectacular effects.

In 2014 she curated with Muriel Leray inside a storage unit in Paris Plus une pièce. Since 2016 she curates Potential Visual Evocations, an ongoing outdoor traveling exhibition that took place in Paris, Clichy, Shanghai, Montreal, La Louvière and Seoul. Participating artists include Claude Closky, Seulgi Lee and Marylène Negro among others.

Collections Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou, Kadist Art Foundation, Les Abattoirs, , the Frac des Pays de la Loires, the , the Centre national des arts plastiques, the Rennes 2 University Cabinet du livre d'artistes.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions Central Idea, Friends & Family, Bordeaux, 2026 AM: A Beginning / PM: What Remains, Été 78, Brussels, 2025 24/7, B09K, Changsha, China, 2023 Titre un à usages multiples, Lendroit, Rennes, 2022 Give and Take, Bloom, Düsseldorf, 2022 Parties de cartes, CDLA, Saint-Yriex-la-Perche, 2021 Blow: Elsa Werth, Bloom, Düsseldorf, 2020 A Land, mfc – Michèle Didier, Paris, 2020 Anywayland, Interface, Dijon, 2019 Temps Partiel [Part-Time], Onde Art Center, Vélizy-Villacoublay, 2019 L'action cesse, Duplex Walden, Geneva, 2018 Temporary Perspectives, Martine Aboucaya Gallery, Paris Title One for Multiple Use, Bazaar Compatible Program, Shanghai, 2016 Title One for Multiple Use, Martine Aboucaya Gallery, Paris, 2016 Elsa Werth, Primo Piano, Paris, 2014

Group exhibitions

Contemporary art collection, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2023 Janelas, BPS22, Charleroi, 2023 The Seashore of Endless Worlds, Le Commun, Geneva, 2023 P,Oe?ie!, TOPO?, Brussels, 2023 De toi à moi, Fondation FIMINCO, Romainville, France, 2022 Horizones, , curated by Clément Dirié, 2022 3 Collectionneurs #8, Été 78, Brussels, 2021 Helix, Bloom, Düsseldorf, curated by Ji Sue Byun, 2021 Nous irons tous au paradis, Frac Normandie – Caen, curated by Anne Cartel, 2021 Tout un film!, Drawing Lab, Paris, curated by Joana P.R. Neves, 2021 X, Frac Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, curated by Claude Closky, 2020 Some of Us, NordArt – Kunst in der Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf, curated by Jérôme Cotinet-Alphaize and Marianne Derrien, 2019 Pourquoi faire, pour quoi faire, Été 78, Brussels, curated by Renato Casciani, 2019 Calculated Chance, The Société, Brussels, curated by Manuel Abendroth et Els Vermang, 2019 ShipShape, Biennale de Coimbra, curated by Tomas Cunha Ferreira, 2019 Tilt Horizon 偏见, AMNUA, Nanjing, curated by Wang Yamin, 2019 26 x Bauhaus, Institut Français, Berlin, 2019, curated by Marjolaine Lévy and Thibaut de Ruyter, 2019 One Minute One Hour One Month... One Million Years, The Island Club Limassol, curated by Christodoulos Panayiotou, 2019 Le génie du lieu, Le Creux de l’Enfer, Thiers, curated by Sophie Auger-Grappin, 2018 Potential Visual Evocations, Darling Foundry, Montreal, 2018 Phantoms, Wonder/Liebert, Bagnolet, curated by Karin Schlageter, 2018 Artist-fun space, Art Center André Malraux, Douarnenez, curated by Julien Nédélec, 2018 Flatland / Abstractions Narratives, Mudam, Luxembourg, 2017 Sentimental Summer, Centre d’Art Bastille (CAB), Grenoble, 2017 La vie mode d’emploi, CAC Chanot, Clamart, curated by Madeleine Mathé and Karin Schlageter, 2017 Do Disturb, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2017 Rob is a Robe, Doc, Paris, 2016 60ème Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, 2015 Bazar, Primo Piano, Paris, curated by Lucia Schreyer, 2015 Cocktail Games, La Ludothèque éphémère, Paris, curated by Florencia Chernajovsky and Clément Dirié, 2015 Châteaux de cartes, Florence Loewy...by artists, Paris, curated by Camille Azaïs, 2015 Intertidal, Galerie Eva Meyer, Paris, curated by MBDTCurators, 2015 Modifications, Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U), Berlin, 2014 Toujours +, Florence Loewy...by artists, Paris, 2014 5/5, Fondation Rosenblum, Paris, curated by Clément Dirié, 2013 Marler Media Art Award, , Marl, curated by Georg Elben, 2013

Selected books Plus une pièce, Plus un multiple, 2014, Sparkless, 2015, Original soldé, 2018, Formule de politesse, 2019, 2020, 2020, Politeness, 2020, Un jour dans Le Monde (4 octobre 2019), 2020, Negociation, 2021, ISBN 979-10-94645-08-6 Meeting Point, 2022, ISBN 979-10-94645-08-6 Abracadabra, 2022, ISBN 978-2-9602786-1-3 Global Warming Coloring Book, 2023