Ben (benjamin Vautier 1935-2014) Pot "le Jaja De Jau"

Ceramic sculpture circa 1991 signed BEN (BENJAMIN VAUTIER DIT) Black enamelled turned terracotta bottle bucket, titled and signed in white "LE JAJA DE JAU - BEN" Height: 22 cm - Width: 14 cm

Born on July 18, 1935 in Naples and died on June 5, 2024 in Nice, Ben, whose real name is Benjamin Vautier, is a French artist of Swiss origin, born to an Irish and Occitan mother and a French-speaking Swiss father. He is the grandson of Marc Louis Benjamin Vautier, a 19th century Swiss painter. He spent his first five years in Naples. After the declaration of war in 1939, Ben and his mother traveled a lot: Switzerland, Turkey, Egypt, Italy... before finally settling in Nice in 1949. He studied at the Parc-Impérial school and at the Stanislas college boarding school. His mother found him a job at the Le Nain bleu bookstore as an errand boy, then she bought him a bookstore-stationery store.
At the end of the 1950s, he sold it to open a small shop whose facade he transformed by accumulating a quantity of objects and in which he sold second-hand records: it was named "Laboratory 32". His shop quickly became a place for meetings and exhibitions where the main members of what would become the Nice School met: César, Arman, Martial Raysse... Close to Yves Klein and seduced by New Realism, he was convinced that "art must be new and bring a shock".
At the beginning of the 1960s, several artists tried to appropriate the world as a work of art. Ben would sign everything that was not: "holes, mysterious boxes, kicks, God, chickens, etc. », linking art and life, explaining that everything is art and that everything is possible in art. In 1962, Ben met George Maciunas in London and discovered the Fluxus group, which he decided to join. In 1963, a Fluxus concert was held in Nice, created by George Maciunas, and in 1964 Ben met George Brecht in New York. Ben then spread the ideas and the Fluxus spirit in France and became the defender of an art of attitude. In 1965, in his store, he created a gallery of three meters by three meters in his mezzanine: "Ben doubts everything". He exhibited Biga, Alocco, Venet, Maccaferri, Serge III, Sarkis, Filliou...
He lived and worked from 1975 on the heights of Saint-Pancrace, a hill in Nice.
His house is today a curiosity that can be seen clinging to the hill.
In 1975, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Centre Pompidou bought the Nice store, recreated by Ben, and regularly presented it with his collections.
In the early 1980s, upon returning from a year spent in Berlin on a scholarship, he met young artists (Robert Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, François Boisrond, Rémi Blanchard, etc.) a group to which he gave the name Figuration Libre.
In 1987, Ben presented his first solo exhibition at the Musée de Céret and the Centre d’art de Labège in Toulouse. In 1988, Ben exhibited at the C.C.C. in Tours and in 1991, he transformed the forum of the Centre Pompidou into a forum of questions.
In 1995, his first retrospective took place at the Musée d’art contemporain de Marseille.
Ben’s works are present in the greatest private and public collections in the world. Very involved in the contemporary scene, he has always supported young artists and gives his point of view on all the news, whether cultural, political, anthropological or artistic, in his regular and prolific newsletters.
In 1995, a public commission placed with the artist was inaugurated in Blois, initiated by Jack Lang, then mayor and Minister of Culture. The Wall of Words is one of the artist's most substantial works: 300 enameled plaques making up a retrospective of his most famous paintings-writings are installed on the facade of the courtyard of the Blois-Agglopolys School of Art and the Conservatory of Music with departmental influence.
In 2001, a retrospective was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nice. In 2007, Ben organized or collaborated on Fluxus exhibitions in Athens, as well as at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona with Bernard Blistène.
In 2009, he presented “Suddenly, the Fluxus Summer” Fluxus exhibition with his collection at the Passage de Retz in Paris. In 2010, the major retrospective “Ben, strip-tease intégrale” was held at the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon. Ben exhibited in Moscow with his Fluxus collection.
In 2011, he created a space for exhibitions and debates in Nice, “L’espace à vendre et à débattre”. Ben is known for his actions and his paintings-writings. His production, both a reflection on art in its most fundamental form and integrating our daily life in its most particular form, succeeds in making life an art. Thus, his work has entered universes as far removed from the artistic field as ethnicity, ego or truth.