Jean-Louis Faure (sculptor)

Jean-Louis Faure is a French sculptor, painter and writer born in 1931 in Paris. His work as a sculptor which he began in 1979, consists of 112 sculptures (which today he prefers to call "narrative carpentry handiwork").
== Biography ==
Jean-Louis Faure was born in 1931. Elementary and secondary education at the Saint-Seurin-de-Prats school, and in several Parisian Lycées as well as at the College of Guienne. What he remembers best about these school years that he himself describes as "sluggish" is his math teacher in middle school prophesying "poor Faure, you will spend your whole life gathering dust behind an old trunk like a forgotten
crust of bread" (sadly an obsolete expression, n.de.t.)
On May 15, 1942, his father François Faure (Paco in the Résistance) who had thrown his lot in with the Général De Gaulle was arrested by the Germans and sent first to Struthof and then to Dachau concentration camp. He came back in 1945 and was named Order of Liberation.
In 1950 Jean-Louis Faure was admitted to the Beaux-Arts de Paris, an experience he qualifies as "surreptitious" and during which he learned Etching.
In 1951 he painted a portrait of Jean Genet (whereabouts unknown)and helped refuel cyclists in the Tour de France.
Military service in Algeria (1952-1954). As a spahi he was assigned to the Governor's Horse Guard, complete with the 1822 issue sabre, and his artistic talents were noticed: he became "peintre de la cavalerie" (official painter to the cavalry) (no doubt the last of the kind). He is discharged in May 1954. The Algerian War starts on the 1st of November.
Self-imposed exile in Bolivia (1955-1956) on the Isla del Sol in the middle of Lake Titicaca. First show of paintings in La Paz.
Resident in Argentina until 1959. Arrested and tried on his return to France, he is acquitted by "justice de classe
;1960-1972
Jean-Louis Faure signs the Manifesto of the 121 in support of the right to insubordination. He becomes art director for various magazines such as Marie Claire and Adam and for major publishers. He contributes to the creation of the pocket-book collection 10/18, and is blessed with the friendship of Alexandre Vialatte. In 1966 he produces issues of the magazine Le Crapouillot (recently taken over by Jean-Jacques Pauvert) devoted to the Funeral Parlour business, LSD and the Swedes. In 1969 he is hired by the Éditions Rencontre. There he works on the making of Max Ophuls' and André Harris's Le Chagrin et La Pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity) produced by Charles Henri Favrod.
In 1973 Jean-Louis Faure takes up painting again... before giving it up "to the gratification of all" (dixit the artist) after the Capitonnages (Upholsteries) series.
In 1979 he tries his hand at sculpture (Model used by Lord Ismay.3) In 1983, the first exhibition of his sculptures takes place rue Berryer. By pure chance, in this very townhouse formerly owned by the
Rothschilds, in the very room he is showing in, Paul Doumer President of the Republic was assassinated in 1932, later to be embalmed by Élie Faure, grandfather of Jean-Louis Faure.
In 1987, his appearance in a documentary about contemporary sculpture by the German director Heinz-Peter Schwerfel elicits the following evaluation by art-critic Michel Nuridsany: "Best ignore the presence of Frenchman Jean-Louis Faure, who was probably chosen to compound the notion, very prevalent in Germany, that French Art ceased to exist twenty years ago."
== Works ==
From the beginning, (1979) , Jean-Louis Faure often incorporated manufactured objects in his pieces(taps, car-mats, plates and cutlery, etc...), distantly reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp's Found object.
Later these incorporations would come to include personal belongings (decorations, photographs, weapons...) as well as art-works, some inherited from his grand-father Elie Faure (African masks, anonymous XIV century statue of the Virgin, portfolio of Francisco Goya, unfinished oil on board painting by Chaïm Soutine, hellenistic sculpture from the II century BC, etc...).
In 2004 Régis Debray- who has come to know the oeuvre over the years- plans the building of a wooden structure in his vast garden in order to exhibit it. For material reasons the project comes to nothing.
In 2009 : Exhibitions and (temporary) consigment of all most all the sculptures in the Vivant Denon and Nicéphore Niépce Museums in Chalon-sur-Saône.
In 2013, Régis Debray's unflagging support of Jean-Louis Faure in word and act, inspires Antoine Gallimard with the notion of exhibiting the work Bêtise de l'Intelligence for a year in the entrance hall of the NRF (today Éditions Gallimard).
Since 1979 Jean-Louis Faure has made 112 sculptures 7 (which today he prefers to call "works of narrative carpentry"), as well as designed the Académie des Sciences sword for Professor Alain-Jacques Valleron 8 (2005).
According to Bertrand Raison, « In order to approach Jean-Louis Faure's univers sculpté (you must) read the titles of his works, but furthermore (...) closely parse the small notes he painstakingly composes for each piece. The sculpture and its caption go hand in hand". For Patrick Marnham "Much of Faure's work grows out of his fascination with the darker sides of French history and the farcical undercurrents of power. The titles give the flavour of his preoccupations."
;Project for a Public Monument
In 2006, for a commission by the Ville de Paris, Jean-Louis Faure submitted a project for a sculpture in honour of General Dumas which would have been erected in Géneral-Catroux square on a grassy embankment bordered by Avenue de Villiers, fifty metres from Gustave Doré's tribute to Alexandre Dumas, the general's son.
In an explanatory note that comes with the artist's submission, Jean-Louis Faure gives the following details :
It is difficult for a sculpture to express the intelligence, the bravery, the integrity, the kindness, the nobility of character of its subject. However we are fortunate in that we have, told and re-told by his son, an abundant and charming legend of our hero's breathtaking physical exploits - four rifles raised horizontally and held at arms-length, a finger in each of the gun barrels, or a dozen soldiers seized by the seats of their pants and thrown over a wall one after the other - exploits it would be a pleasure to describe at length in a book. We have chosen a truly super-human anecdote, of the kind most calculated to captivate the imagination, from this heroic epos. Therefore Thomas-Alexandre will be shown as a major-general in the Army of the Republic, his sabre at his side, embracing a beam with his two arms, bare-back on a very bewildered horse that he is lifting from the ground. In the course of this momentous occurrence- causing the General to lose his cocked hat—the father will never lose sight of his son on the other side of the Avenue de Villiers. In conclusion, we were in honour bound to commemorate, by the way of inscriptions on the beam serving as pediment to the monument as well as on the columns supporting it—his refusal—which permanently alienated Bonaparte—to take up the command of a punitive expedition against the insurrection in the colony of Saint-Domingue in 1802. With the words "La Liberté ou la Mort,(Freedom or Death), Haïti et France" we wish to emphasise the General's fierce loyalty to an anti slavery Republic as well as his indefectible attachment to the land of his childhood.
The Direction des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Paris did not follow up on this proposition.
== Conservation ==
* Musée Nicéphore Niepce, Châlon-sur-Saône (2 sculptures on consignment)
* Musée de la Grande Guerre, Meaux (4 sculptures, living bequest)
* Musée de l'Homme, Paris (1 sculpture, living bequest)
* Centre National des Arts Plastiques (4 acquired sculptures)
* Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain Provence Côte d'Azur (1 sculpture)
* Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon (1 sculpture)
* Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain Alsace (1 sculpture)
== Exhibitions ==
* Jean-Louis Faure - Paintings, Galerie Rodolphe Stadler, Paris, from 04/04/1974 to 04/05/1974.
* Jean-Louis Faure - Sculptures, Galerie Alain Blondel, Paris, from 16/10/1984 to 05/01/1985.
* Jean-Louis Faure - Galerie Arlogos, Nantes, 1985.
* Jean-Louis Faure. Sculptures, Théâtre d'Hérouville - Comédie de Caen (in collaboration with Gallery Arlogos) from April 20 to May 22, 1988.
* Jean-Louis Faure/ Gérard Gasiorowski. La Guerre,Gallery Arlogos (in collaboration with Gallery Adrien Maeght, Paris) 1989.
* Jean-Louis Faure, Sculptures Espace Culturel de la Manufacture de Tabacs de Nantes .P.A.R.C January 16 to February 12 1989.
* Jean-Louis Faure, Institut Français, Cologne. 1990
* Jean-Louis Faure, Jean-Michel Sanejouard : two mavericks, Musée d'Art Moderne de Villeneuve d'Ascq. From April 27 to July 28 1991
* Jean-Louis Faure sculptures Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, from 21/01 to 28/03, 1993
* Jean-Louis Faure, Galerie I.U.F.M. Confluence(s), Lyon. From October 1 to November 14, 1998 _12
* Jean-Louis Faure, Sculpteur d'Histoire(s), une retrospective, [Sculptor of History(Stories)], Musée Vivant Denon and Musée Nicèphore-Niepce, Châlon-sur-Saône, from June 20 to September 28, 2009._(1) (https://www.paris-art.com/sculpteur-dhistoires/).
* Jean-Louis Faure: Histoire(s) (History/Stories) Bibliothèque Alexis de Toqueville in association with the Memorial pour la Paix, Caen. From March 16 to April 22, 2018.
Group shows
* Rendez-vous des Artistes : Christian Corre/Jean-Louis Faure/ Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch/ Alain Tirouflet, Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques, Paris (chosen by Michel Troche) January 18 to February 14, 1983.
* Siméon et les Flamants Roses, jeune sculpture européenne (Allington-Baquié-Bartolani-Blacker-Catania-DiRosa-Faure-Friedmann-Guerresi-Houshiary-Jammes-Monnier-Navarro-Noguera-Nunzio-Proudhom-Plensa-Raynaud-Totem) Albi, Centre Cultural de l'Albigeois, from July 3 to July 31, 1984).
* F.I.A.C. 1985, presented by Gallery Alain Blondel, Paris Ateliers Internationaux du Grand Lucé, Abbaye de Fontevrault, (F.R.A.C. Pays de Loire) 1985.
* Salon de Montrouge, (presented by Gallery Alain Blondel, Paris).1985.
* Six Siècles d'Art Contemporain [Six Centuries of Contemporay Art], Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
* Obersteinbach "Corpo" Presentation of the F.R.A.C. Alsace collection - Art Frankfurt (presented by Gallery Arlogos, Nantes). Frankfurt-am-Main.
* Passé-Présent. Presentation of the Rhône -Alpes F.R.A.C. collection, Gallery Portes-Avions, Marseille.
* Fusionen : Faure, Fleischer, Lavier, Rousse, Bayer Kultur Forum Leverkusen.
* Jean-Louis Faure, Richard Baquié, Fabrice Hibert, Galerie Arlogos, Nantes.
* [untitled], Centre d'Art du Luxembourg, Luxembourg,
Du Mur de l'Atlantique au Mur de Berlin, (...) Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, Musée Maritime de l'Ile Tatihou, from May 20 to 15 September, 1994.* / Conseil Régional de Basse-Normandie, Abbaye des Dames (Caen) / Musée des Beaux Arts de Saint-Lô, from November 10, 1994 to January 3,1995.
* Un autre Monde/// Dans Notre Monde. Evocation contemporaine du réalisme fantastique , [Another World/// within our World. Fantastic realism, a contemporary testimonial.] (...) F.R.A.C. Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Marseille, from March 23 to June 27, 2019.
* Emmanuel Guibert en bonne compagnie, Musée d'Angoulême, from May 19 to June 27, 2021.
== Writings ==
* La plus puissante des impuissances [The most powerful impotence], in Revue d'Esthétique 33, 1998.
* J'ai vu les mêmes abrutis dénoncer les Juifs, puis tondre les femmes. [I have seen the same morons inform on Jews and later shave off women's hair]. Foreword by Régis Debray; avant-propos by Charles-Henri Favrod, Gollion, (Switzerland) Infolio editions, 2012.(ISBN 9782884748131)
== Filmography==
*La Troisième Dimension Réalisateur : Heinz-Peter Schwerfel (1ère partie : Franck Dorneiff, Markus Lüpertz, Markus Raetz, Jean-Louis Faure, Richard Deacon - 2ème partie : Gloria Friedman, Tony Cragg, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Anne et Patrick Poirier). Coproduction la SEPT, Arion, HPS films, WDR, ORD, ENAP. 1987.
* Vies: Alain Cavalier Avec Jean-Louis Faure, Michel Labelle, Alain Pouliquen, Françoise Widhoff. 87 minutes, 2000.
* Être vivant et le savoir : Alain Cavalier, 80 minutes, 2019. (présence de la sculpture La Jeune Morte).
Category:French sculptors 
Category:French painters
Category:French writers
Category:1931 births
Category:People from Paris