Ben d'Armagnac

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Ben d'Armagnac (born March 28, 1940 in Amsterdam ; † September 28, 1978 there ) was a Dutch performance artist of Belgian origin.

life and work

Ben d'Armagnac studied painting at the Art Academy of Antwerp from 1959 to 1963 . Since 1965 he worked with the artist Gerrit Dekker and exhibited together with him. For example, in 1966 you showed a room installation with three wood stacks ( wood stacks 140 × 200 × 200 cm each) in the gallery Wide White Space in Antwerp . After separating from Dekker, he increasingly turned to environments ( installation ) and performance . D'Armagnac was one of those performance artists who exposed themselves to threatening and life-threatening situations with their work. In 1975 d'Armagnac participated in the IX. Biennale of Paris , in 1977 Manfred Schneckenburger invited him to documenta 6 in Kassel .

“ In his performances, Ben d´Armagnac examines his own life situations, the specific experiences of which he would like to convey to the viewer. Events, actions and symbols that the artist is confronted with, that occupy him, that come up to him, are conveyed to the recipient in translations, presented to him as thought patterns. Emphasized mediation intentions, which d'Armagnac describes as “a ritual act that goes back to human experiences and feelings”, characterize his work ”.

In 1978 there was a performance in New York in which he was lying on the terrace in front of the Brooklyn Museum , "... in a black suit on white plates while a jet of water was aimed directly at his heart." His heartbeat was amplified - by a loudspeaker - transferred to the square. While he was breathing heavily at the beginning and moving his arms slightly, when the beam became sharper, breathing, heartbeat and movement suddenly stopped. Before the audience could break out of their shock and get help, the artist jumped up and ran away. In the same year, d'Armagnac drowned in an accident in an Amsterdam canal .

literature

  • Jan Brand et al. (Ed.): Ben d'Armagnac , Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1981 (English / Dutch)
  • Johannes Gachnang: Ben d'Armagnac, Gerrit Dekker, 1968–1973. Work documentation of all projects and rooms . thur Hubschmid, Paris 1974 (Dutch-German)
  • Catalog for documenta 6 (1977) in Kassel: documenta 6 ; Volume 1: Painting, Sculpture / Environment, Performance ; Volume 2: photography, film, video ; Volume 3: Hand drawings, utopian design, books , Kassel 1977, ISBN 3-920453-00-X .
  • Georg F. Schwarzbauer: Performance: Image documentation for performances by 30 performers; Ben d´Armagnac "performance" - Perf. Kassel / Cologne ; in: Kunstforum International Volume 24: “Performance”; Mainz 1977.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wide White Space. Achter het museum, 1966 1976, Düsseldorf 1994, p. 252
  2. ^ Elisabeth Jappe: Performance, Ritual, Process: Handbook of Action Art in Europe . Prestel, Munich 1993, p. 12, ISBN 978-3791313009
  3. ^ Georg F. Schwarzbauer: Performance: image documentation for performances by 30 performers; Ben d´Armagnac "performance" - Perf. Kassel / Cologne ; in: Kunstforum International Volume 24: “Performance”; Mainz 1977, pp. 76/77
  4. ^ "European Performance Series" , Brooklyn Museum, New York, organized by the Avery Gallery , New York and Jan Brand , Netherlands; with Reindeer Werk , Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen), Marina Abramović , Ben d'Armagnac, Cid Collins , Gerrit Dekker , Hans Eykelboom , Barbara Heinisch and Marten Hendriks
  5. ↑ Proteus in the mirror: Critical theory of Paul Geyer, Monika Schmitz-Emans: Subject in the 20th century . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2003, p. 578, ISBN 978-3826026331
personal data
SURNAME Armagnac, Ben d '
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch performance artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH September 28, 1978
Place of death Amsterdam