Vietnam, 1970

Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch  

The life of painter of Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch (1940-2001) cannot be dissociated from the collective adventure in which he participated in the sixties. In 1968, Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch, in fact, founded with Pierre Tilman, Franck Venaille, Daniel Biga and Claude Delmas the review Chorus, of which we can measure today, with hindsight, how much it had proved to be visionary. Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch thus contributed with others to the revelation of artists who subsequently became famous, such as Christian Boltanski for example. Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch's life was hectic, turbulent. Very young, he "escaped" from the military school where he had been placed before being searched for and recovered by the gendarmes. This rebellious spirit found in painting its space of freedom. Affected by illness, he went through moments of elation and depression. Teacher, he offered an easy, clear, accessible speech. The artist had been very close to the painters of the New Figuration, using the means of photography in particular as a working tool for painting. Working on the “already worked” according to his formula, he developed a work which, beyond media techniques, was above all that of a lover of painting. Between silver image and painting, Le Boul'ch devoted his work to this permanent coming and going between painting and photography, between image and reality, all this in a time when he observed how much contemporary art moved away from painting to approach other shores. With hindsight, Le Boul'ch's work is still relevant today, confirming that “contemporary painting” is not an oxymoron.