Ben Vautier

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Ben Vautier

Ben Vautier (born July 18, 1935 in Naples ), better known as Ben , actually Benjamin Vautier , is a French artist of Swiss origin and now lives in Nice . In the 1960s he was one of the most important representatives of the Fluxus movement.

Vautier's artistic work follows the ready-mades , object art and composition .

biography

Vautier's family often moved between countries in their early years and eventually moved to Nice in 1949. Vautier began to develop a personal artistic style based on Dadaism . He was inspired by artists such as Yves Klein , Marcel Duchamp and the Nouveaux Réalistes .

Between 1958 and 1973 Ben Vautier ran a record shop in Nice, the "Magasin". This caused quite a stir with its facade and interior. When designing it, Vautier unfolds his typical style: over the years, the facade is covered with a large number of objects of various types. He complements the whole thing with characteristic brightly colored cursive comments. In 1994 the facade of the shop was exhibited in the Center Georges Pompidou .

In 1959, Vautier founded Ben Dieu magazine . The following year, the first solo exhibition “Rien et tout” (English: nothing and everything) took place on the first floor of his shop (there in the so-called Laboratoire 32 ). Alongside Al Hansen , John Cage and others, Ben Vautier was also one of the leading members of the Fluxus movement from 1962 to 1970 . He was therefore represented at international Fluxus festivals and appears through many appearances and performances. This made Nice a center for Fluxus in France.

Ben Vautier becomes a mentor of the still young art movement Figuration Libre , which in 1981 was named by Vautier in an article for the magazine Flash Art . Vautier is represented at numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, and many retrospectives testify to the artist's artistic success.

Others

In the early 1960s, Vautier took the initiative to sign everything that came under his eyes, including the works of other artists and his own body. He was based on Duchamp's ready-mades and the knowledge that a work of art can only be recognized by its signature. After about two years, the company culminated in a signed declaration in 1962 that it would no longer sign anything.

In 1972 Ben Vautier was a participant in Documenta 5 in Kassel in the department Individual Mythologies : Self-Presentation - Performances - Activities - Changes .

In 1992 a motto la Suisse n'existe pas (“Switzerland does not exist”) by Ben Vautier adorned the official Swiss pavilion at the world exhibition in Seville .

Ben Vautier is exhibiting several works in the museum FLUXUS + in Potsdam.

family

The Swiss painter Benjamin Vautier (1829–1898) is his great-grandfather. His father was Max Ferdinand Vautier, born on July 4, 1900 in Düsseldorf, his mother Janet Giraud († 1989).

exhibition

literature

Web links

Commons : Ben Vautier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fleurice Würz: Fluxus Nice. Saarbrücken 2011, ISBN 978-3-922441-11-3 . (French).
  2. ↑ Portrait of Max Vautier, 1923 , Portrait of Max Vautier by Rudolf Levy , on Artnet, accessed on August 29, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Vautier, Ben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vautier, Benjamin (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French artist
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Naples