Jean-François Boclé is a

Martinican Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...

artist. His practice mixes poetic writing with

installation Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian l ...

, painting, sculpture, video, photography, intervention in the public space and

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

Life

Jean-François Boclé was born in 1971 in

Fort-de-France Fort-de-France (, , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Fodfwans) is a Communes of France, commune and the capital city of Martinique, an overseas department and region of France located in the Caribbean. It is also one of the major cities in the ...

, Martinique,

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

, living his childhood years in Saint-Esprit. He moved to Paris at fifteen, where he currently lives and works. After his studies in Modern Literature at

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

university, he was trained first at th
École nationale supérieure d'art de Bourges
and then at the

École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Science ...

of Paris.

Exhibitions

Everything Must Go Installation At The Saatchi Gallery - London

Jean-François Boclé participated in several biennials such as the 1st Biennial of Thessaloniki (2007, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece), showing "Tout doit disparaître! (Everything must go!)". This is a work Bocle has repeated through his career, beginning with a show at Espace Oscar Niemeyer, in Paris, in 2001. In an installation at the Saatchi Gallery in 2015, it was described as: "a sea of blue plastic bags forms an abyss, a quasi-memorial to lives lost at sea during the transatlantic slave trade." He took part in a group work entitled “Integration and resistance in the global era. A critical territory” at the 10th

Havana Biennial The Bienal de La Habana was founded in 1984. It takes place in Havana (Cuba) every two years. It principally aims at promoting the developing world in contemporary art circles, giving priority to Latin American and Caribbean artists, although art ...

(2011, Cuba). In September 2011 he participated in the 8th Biennial of Mercosur in Porto Alegre (Brazil). In 2008 the

Bildmuseet Bildmuseet ( en, Museum of Visual Arts) is a contemporary art museum in Umeå, northern Sweden. History The museum was founded in 1981 by Umeå University and it exhibits Swedish and international contemporary art, visual culture, design, and a ...

Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; South Westrobothnian: ;). fi, Uumaja; sju, Ubmeje; sma, Upmeje; se, Ubmi) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, Ume� ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, devoted the entire Museum to Boclé for its largest solo exhibition to date, to represent the characteristics of his art, "the wide range of media employed, the presence of precise and challenging topics, the relationship with a colonial past and a

post-colonial Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...

present ". In 2010, he gave a solo exhibition at the 28th Art Brussels Contemporary Art Fair. In 2011 Boclé was Artist in Residence at the Instituto Buena Bista in Curaçao. He was also part of a touring show, ''Fetish Modernity'', which visited the

Royal Museum for Central Africa The Royal Museum for Central Africa or RMCA ( nl, Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika or KMMA; french: Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale or MRAC; german: Königliches Museum für Zentralafrika or KMZA), also officially known as the AfricaMuse ...

(Tervuren, Belgium), the

Museo de América The (English: Museum of America) is a Spanish national museum of arts, archaeology and ethnography in Madrid. Its collections cover the whole of the Americas and range from the Paleolithic period to the present day. It is owned by the Spanish S ...

in Madrid, the Naprstek Museum in Praha, the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden (Netherlands), and the

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen The (NMVW) () is an overarching museum organisation for the management of several ethnographic museums in the Netherlands, founded in 2014. It consists of the Tropenmuseum () in Amsterdam, the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal, and the Museum Volk ...

in Stockholm over four years. The exhibition was described in the Museo de América catalogue as: "created by six European Museums, tinvites visitors to explore the notion of

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...

. (...) This idea is expressed via several themes: criticism of the legacy of

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

museums through contemporary art; (...)." Also in 2011, he participated in the International Festival of contemporary sculpture (30 cities in Northern France), and the 8th Mercosur Biennial in Porto Alegre (Brazil).

Exhibitions

2007 1st Thessaloniki Biennial, Greece 2009 Group Show Kreyol Factory, Paris 2009 10th Havana Bienal, Cuba 2010 Festival of Contemporary Sculpture ''Escaut, Rives et dérives'', France 2010 31st Biennial of Pontevedra, Spain 2010 Group show ''Global Caribbean'', Miami

Publications

Articles

* Boclé Jean‑François “Outre-Mémoire Un Mémorial Sonore Et Visuel.” ''

Africultures ''Africultures'' is a publication of arts and culture about and from Africa and its diasporas. Based in Paris, it was founded in 1997 under the impetus of Olivier Barlet by journalists and academics such as Virginie Andriamirado, Gérald Arnaud, ...

'' 2014 pp. 162–162. * Boclé Jean‑François and Anna Seiderer. “La Peau Morte De L’Écriture. Un Entretien Avec Jean-François Boclé.” ''Esclavages & Post-Esclavages'' (20220519) 2022.

External links

Jean-François Boclé
(official website)
Jean-François Boclé
on vimeo

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bocle, Jean-Francois 1971 births Living people People from Fort-de-France Caribbean artists French conceptual artists