About
Hervé Thiot
HERVE THIOT (1973), alias AIRBIOS, is a Swiss painter, performer and musician of Mauritian origin living in Biel/ Bienne. His distinctive style and vision are nourished by contact with both underground scenes and established institutions, in a perpetual creative dynamic at the crossroads of artistic disciplines. In his cosmic biotope, humans and technology coexist harmoniously and reinvent a world torn between universal love and bitterness, declined in malicious futuristic visions. The artist with multiple lives conceives his work as an instrument of human encounter and exchange, which leads him to prestigious collaborations and multiple international tours, among others with urban art, dance and opera companies. He has created an astonishing number of murals, paintings, drawings, installations, videos, photographs, decorations, set designs, exhibitions, publications and performances. From the local bar to avant-garde festivals. And sometimes at social events. Like a graffitied aristocratic alley cat, from the aperitif to the opera.
The essence of his work lies in movement, vibration, the fragmentation of the gaze, the mixture of artistic disciplines and the exploration of constantly renewed mediums. His artistic career bears witness to an unquenchable thirst for human sharing, travel, innovation and freedom.
© DSC_8503 copie
Projects
2018
- « Eisplanade » visual performance Palais du Congrèss Biel, CH
- « Lettre de Roulotte » solo – exhibition La Voirie, Biel, CH
- «Tape Riot» performance, Oran, DZ
- «Tape Riot» performance, Copenhagen, DK
- opera production «Orfeo“ visual performance Teatro Arriaga Bilbao, SP
- opera production «Don Pasqual“ visual performance Donizetti Theater Graz, AT
2016
- «Tape Riot» Tour 2016 (Brussels, Lucerne, Zürich, Brig, Görlitz, Bremen, Ludwigshafen)
- «Virtual Landscapes » solo-exhibition La Voirie, Biel, CH
- « Gärbi Breihaus » interior design, Biel, CH
- « 0,5 » murales Pôles des Arts urbains, Tours, FR
- « Espace Vide » installation Wolf Kino, Berlin, DE
2015
- « TAPE RIOT » Tour 2015 (Steckborn, Tanzfest Switzerland, Copenhagen, Marseille, Detmold, Martha HerfordMuseum)
- « Le Singe » interior design Biel, CH
- « Bar ohne Name » interior design, Berlin, DE
- « Backjump » group-show Kunsthaus Bethanien, Berlin DE
2014
- « Tape Riot » Tour 2014 (Graz, Marseille, Bellelay, Neuchâtel, Besançon,Tunis)
- « Anesthesia of subversive content » groupshow Centre Paqu’Art, Biel, CH
- « Phantom Vibration » Solo-Show Arthur Gallery, Biel, CH
- « Tape Riot » Tour 2013 (Kosiçe 2013, Les Tombées de Nuits, La Plage)
- site-specific creation « Dark Side of the Moon » scenography, Mulhouse, FR
- Installation « Daniel Liebeskind Release » Leerter 17 Gallery, Berlin, DE
- « Coupole » Biel, CH
- site-specific creation « Noir + Blanc à Minuit » scenography Podring Festival, Biel, CH
- visual artist for music video, artist: Shantell Solidays, Paris, FR
- « Spacing » performance with Anna Anderegg 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin, DE
- « Afro-Pfingsten » interior design, Winterthur, CH
- creation « Tape Riot » residencies pOlau, Tour, FR / KJBi, Brussels, BE / La Paperie, Angers, FR
- « Kindle Stube » interior design, Berlin, DE
- « La Plage des six Pompes » decoration design, La Chaux-des-Fonds, CH
- « Human Erosion » exhibition 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin, DE
- site-specific creation « 10h10 » ASPHALT PILOTEN, La Chaux-des Fonds, CH
- « Bits, Atoms, Neurons and Genes that BANG » group-exhibition 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin,
- « La Plage des six Pompes » dec
- Set Designer for TV-Productions: « Gute Zeiten schlechte Zeiten, Polizeiruf, Tatort, Wester Wald, Verliebt in Berlin » Berlin, DE
- visual performance « Soundimprovisations » ABLE Gallery, Berlin, DE
- performance in collaboration with Eddie Egal Transyapit Festival, Istanbul, TR
- collaboration protects with the Swiss choreographer Anna Anderegg, Berlin, DE
- performance in collaboration with Eddie Egal Glastonbury Festival, UK
- performance in collaboration with Eddie Egal Museums Night, Berlin, DE
- « Backjump » group-show Kunsthaus Bethanien, Berlin DE
- artistic director « Schnittblick » Gallery, Berlin, DE
2013
2012
2013
2011
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005.
Awards
2017
- Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie preis Preisverleihung “Kultur- und Kreativpiloten Deutschland” with Asphalt piloten “tape riot”
2002
- first prize « Chevalier de la communication » Villa Ritter, Federal Office of Communication, Biel, CH
1999
- 3rd prize « Incon a Millenium » photo-competition PPS (Professional Photographers Switzerland), studio category
1997
- award winning picture BP Young European Artists Competition, Paris, FR
After an apprenticeship as a draughtsman, locksmith and builder (Hartmann AG), HERVÉ THIOT was spontaneously hired at the age of 20 as a creative artist in a communication agency (Aseantic AG). At the time of the nascent internet, his visionary 360 degree antennae allowed him to operate as an art director by combining the fields of graphic design, photography, illustration and construction, for clients such as Rado, City of Biel, Swatch.
At the age of 25, he went freelance. With his partner José Thomet, a film-maker, he opened a photo studio specialising in film for watchmaking clients. His work was rewarded with a prize from the PPS (Professional Photographers of Switzerland).
In his early thirties, he emigrated to Berlin. His first period was impacted by collaborations with the punk scene. In contact with the best of the underground, he created musical shows mixing theatrical performances, robots, metal sculptures and pyrotechnics. He plays in the hype clubs and various festivals (Tacheles, Damensalon, Scherer Art, Glastonbury, etc).
He then opened his own gallery in Neuköln (Schmitblick) to carry out musical and sound performance experiments. During this second period in Berlin, he rubbed shoulders with the emblematic figures of street art (Bansky, Mode 2, 1UP) during exhibitions where he was invited to create large format frescoes (Bethanien, Vandalism, Futurium). He creates interior decorations for trendy bars and collaborates on the set designs of film and television productions with the production company Black Box Berlin (Verliebt in Berlin, Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten, Tatort).
A third Berlin period began when he met the choreographer Anna Anderegg. They founded the company Asphalt Piloten, which specialises in dance performances in urban environments. During the performances, he produces tape art in situ in osmosis with the dancers, the movements in the space and the public. He tours throughout Europe, but also in Asia (China, Korea, Vietnam) and North America.
After 15 years of residence in Berlin, he returned to Biel, where he quickly found his habits as a local hero. He discovered the world of opera thanks to the director Barbora Horáková Joly who hired him as a set designer, live painter and video artist for creations at the opera houses of Graz, Bilbao and Amsterdam. A logical sequence of interaction between different performing arts professions.
His natural rhythm and his love of pulsating music are also obvious in his hybrid musical creations, mixing industrial techno and sound poetry, for more than 30 years. Between electronic and experimental music, his innate sense of improvisation allows him to play live with jazz, rock and classical musicians or even to accompany poets.
But the most enduring aspect of his frenetic creativity can be found in his painting, mainly in acrylic, marker or printing ink. He exhibited in the 1990s at the Congress Palace in Biel, and 25 years later for the architect Liebeskind in Berlin. Developed as a teenager in contact with graffiti, technical drawing and comics, his jubilant and contagious art can be found on the walls of clubs, concert halls, bars and in (countless) private homes. Or in many places that have now disappeared.
(antoine joly mai 2023, translate by Delphine Ayrton)
© workspace espace libre Biel