As part of the first vacation dedicated to the collection of gallerist Daniel Varenne, died in 2018, PIASA auction house offers for sale a selection of ten works by Benjamin Vautier, better known by his artist name: «Ben».
From Switzerland to Turkey, from Italy to Egypt, in the background of World War II, the first years of the artist’s life unfold the roads of Europe. These ended in 1949 in Nice where he and his mother put down their suitcases.
After working in the Blue Nain bookstore, he creates his own shop in Nice, at the end of 50 years. From the end of the 1950s, this place became an epicenter of the creation by attracting the main members of the School of Nice: César (1921-1998), Arman (1928-2005) or Martial Raysse (born in 1936). He joined the Fluxus movement in October 1962, following a meeting with the American artist George Maciunas in London.
In 1977, five years after taking part in the Documenta V, Ben is in charge of organizing the exhibition "About Nice" which inaugurates the Centre Georges Pompidou. Strongly influenced by Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Isidore Isou (1925-2007) and John Cage, Ben's work dissolves the border between the studio and the world, between art and reality. Beginning in 1953, the paintings of words have become, at the time of the technical reproducibility of the images, an iconic production of the artist.
The transgressive conception of art and the questioning of the status of the artist, both conveyed by his work, seduce Daniel Varenne.
Ben (Benjamin Vautier dit) (né en 1935)
Duchamp box (Ben museum), 1979-1992
Objets divers, collage et acrylique sur toiles et sur bois dans une caisse de transport contenant 43 éléments crées de 1979 à 1992
111 x 153 x 36 cm
Provenance: Daniel Varenne, Genève
Estimation: 70 000 / 90 000 euros
He is notably represented in this session by The Duchamp's box, which was exhibited in 2010 during the "Ben" retrospective devoted to him by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon. This heteroclite work composed of 43 elements created from 1979 to 1992 is a tribute to the one that the artist considers as a spiritual father. Curator of his own work, Marcel Duchamp, who died in 1969, had made - from 1941 - boxes in suitcase in which miniaturized reproductions and photographic prints of his works coexisted. In Duchamp's Box, we find the white writing on black background associated with the taste for the derision that continues to make Ben's success.
