Patrick Mimran

Biography

Before establishing his reputation as an artist, Patrick Mimran was active as a businessman. After Lamborghini went bankrupt in 1978, Mimran purchased the company with his brother Jean Claude. He served as CEO until 1987, engineering a successful turnaround and selling the company to Chrysler in 1987.

Mimran’s artwork has ranged through media including painting, photography, video art, sculpture and installations. He also works in electronic music, composing the score for Maurice Béjart’s ballet Kurozuka (performed at the Bunkan Kalkan Theatre, Tokyo) 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.

Patrick Mimran is best known in the United States for his Billboard Project, which he initiated in 2000 in London and expanded to New York, Miami, Venice, and Tokyo. Visitors to the Chelsea art district of New York City will be familiar with his billboards on 24th, 25th and 26th Streets (bearing messages such as "Art is everywhere but not in everything").

His “Jet Set Giraffe” sculpture (the “tallest giraffe sculpture in the world”) was installed in Monte Carlo’s Grand Casino Garden from 2009 to 2013, when it moved to its permanent home at the Colchester Zoo in Essex, England.

Mimran’s work has been exhibited in museums including the Leonardo da Vinci Museum for Science and Technology, Palazzo Venezia and Kunstpalais Erlangen, as well as festivals including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Art Cologne, Art Paris and Art Karlsruhe.