His sudden disappearance took the world of culture by surprise, and left the city of Nice, where he was based, in shock. Artist Ben, 88, died on Wednesday by taking his own life a few hours after the death of his wife Annie, to whom he had been married for 60 years. The facetious painter, whose real name is Benjamin Vautier, known for his slogans drawn in white cursive letters even on pencil cases and notebooks, had already mentioned in recent years the possibility of ending his life, not without the hint of humor that characterized him throughout his career and his life.
His wife Annie Vautier, herself an artist, suffered a stroke Monday evening, to which she succumbed early Wednesday, the couple’s two children, Eva and François, explained in a press release. “Unwilling and unable to live without her, Ben killed himself a few hours later at their home in Saint-Pancrace, in the heights of Nice,” they wrote. In 2020, during an exhibition in Essonne, he had already confided to Le Parisien “dream(r) of suicide”, a perspective that he seemed to find much more amusing than tragic.
“It’s always suicide that I prefer”
Asked about a room in the exhibition devoted to the ego, he replied that he lived “badly with my ego, it is always there, we cannot get rid of it”. “The only way is to kill yourself.” This is why every Tuesday I think about suicide. I could transform myself into an ego-removal specialist,” he added, bursting out laughing. “The ego is the beginning of the universe, everything is ego. Artists suffer from art and ego. »
The artist, then aged 85, also declared with amused detachment that “everyone expects me to die next week”. “That’s why there are so many journalists, they’re preparing my obituary!” I miss world glory,” he said, bursting into bursts of laughter again.
VideoArtist Ben found dead in his home aged 88
Five years earlier, he also spoke to Nice-Matin on the occasion of his 80th birthday from his residence in Saint-Pancrace, where he died on Wednesday. Speaking about his aversion to this party, he was already talking about the end of his life and this “ego” which seemed to visibly obsess him. “Since I see ego everywhere, if someone celebrates my 80th birthday, I tell them: They’re waiting for me to die, they want me to put them in my will, they forgot the chrysanthemumss,” he declared, smiling at the table on his terrace, in the images of this filmed interview.
Asked about his wishes for his birthday, the artist wanted to avoid the question. “For my birthday, if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t mark it,” he said, before finally saying frankly: “I always prefer suicide.”
He then found his usual laugh, having fun imagining the reactions around him if he took the plunge, without any darkness. “ The bastard, he got us! He is dead. I’d like that,” he said, laughing. Before posing for a photo, a sheet of yellow between the teeth, crossed out with the words “I HATE BIRTHDAYS”, traced with its iconic rounded writing and its circles above the “I”. His wife Annie Vautier, interviewed in the same report, wished him “serenity” and “a little joie de vivre” for his 80th birthday.
The artist had also left some potential clues in his work, such as one of his first creations, showing himself at gunpoint with a gun. The same weapon found not far from his remains on Wednesday.
