Contemporary art: No more laughing with Ben. The Nice resident died at 88

This is the end of an anti-artist, at least in the elite sense of the word. For Ben Vautier, Ben says simply, everything was art. Art therefore appeared to be made for everyone. A statement that takes its weight if we know how far minimalism or conceptualism have moved away from the general public. Ben died at age 88 on June 5. You may know it. The body was found in his home in Nice. Annie, his wife who was much more than his half, had just died. It appears to be a suicide. There is talk in the dispatches of a “gunshot wound”. The investigation is ongoing. There is no doubt that it would have made the person concerned laugh in normal times. Like perhaps the little spiels from officials about it, from the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi to the inevitable Rachida Dati. Does she not remain Minister of Culture with a capital “C”?

Ben was born in 1935 in Naples, in Mussolini’s Italy. He was of Swiss origin. His name Vautier in fact links him to a string (let’s use a French word!) of painters, whose family tree has budded all the way to Germany since the birth of Benjamin Vautier in Morges in 1829. That’s a long way away… From 1939 , the toddler traveled with his mother, despite times of war. He will have seen Egypt, Turkey and of course Switzerland. The couple settled in Nice in 1949. For this new Benjamin Vautier, this will be a definitive stop. There he became a bookseller, stationer and record dealer. Professions that had a future at that time. He also began to draw and write “sorts of poems”. The beginner is already a man of language. Few words in general, but the kind that appeal to their reader. You have to know how to limit yourself to the essentials.

The Nice site is well chosen. Chance (sometimes) does things well. This is where those that Pierre Restany grouped together in 1960 under the label of “new realists” simultaneously begin. A term then taboo. Painting, at least that which claims to be progressive, still remained abstract at the time. But the thing interests little Yves Klein, Arman or César, who will soon be joined by fellow Swiss (like Jean Tinguely) as well as Italians (I will cite Mimmo Rotella) or Swedes (and the name of Öyvind Fahlström comes to mind ). Ben immediately hits very hard. He wears a sign around his neck saying “Art is useless”. He would naturally have liked to become the greatest creator. He just made the mistake of arriving too late. The newcomer will be satisfied with small calligraphic sentences with very recognizable writing in white on a black background. The popular version of the austere and complex works of the Japanese On Kawara, which multiplies the dates with lots of complex historical things behind it.

At the beginning, things happen in Ben’s bookstore, transformed into a spirit office. The people of Nice then joined the very informal Fluxus movement, which fought against elitism while creating new ones. They are also beginning to “appropriate”, a major trend that they will have to share with visual artists from around the world. But “Ben doubts everything,” as the name of his nine-square-meter gallery says, which exhibits people “doing something new.” The thing needed more space. Ben will therefore acquire a house on the heights of Nice. Where he lived, and where he therefore died. The residence has gradually become a work of art in itself, like the traveling store that the Center Pompidou acquired and reconstituted. In Ben, there is also a raw creator, with what the thing supposes to be diffuse, confused and dense. The Franco-Swiss has in certain aspects become a Horse Postman in the era of the automobile. All he had to do was accumulate the stones that would make the building. Ben would rather favor the sign.

The man did not limit himself to the construction of this unique work. He needed to multiply, but without the slightly snobbish aspect of Andy Warhol. Ben will put his label everywhere he can, from socks to berets, postcards or t-shirts. Let us not forget that art is everywhere for him. However, he was not a real trader. The adopted Niçois knew how to devalue himself economically by making himself so accessible. This economic choice did not prevent him from seeing himself represented in the greatest museums in the world, where he brought a little smile. Ben was at MoMA. In Beaubourg, as I said. At the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where we don’t laugh every day. At the Tate in London, probably. The last time we saw it in XXL format in Paris was at the Maillol Museum (a private structure) in 2016. The exhibition, which largely gave the floor to those who liked to take it (we had everything the time of helmets on the head), seemed particularly successful to me. Well articulated. This Ben was a blessing. Or perhaps a ben-addiction. What do you want? Now is the time to play with words.

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Born in 1948, Etienne Dumont studied in Geneva which were of little use to him. Latin, Greek, law. A failed lawyer, he turned to journalism. Most often in the cultural sections, he worked from March 1974 to May 2013 at the “Tribune de Genève”, starting by talking about cinema. Then came fine arts and books. Other than that, as you can see, nothing to report.More informations

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