Jean-Marc Bustamante

JEAN-MARC BUSTAMANTE (Touluse, 1952).
"Lumiere", 2003.
Silkscreen on methacrylate. Ed. 30/60
Measurements: 60 x 60 cm.
Of Ecuadorian father and English mother, this French artist (Toulouse, 1952) occupies one of the most outstanding places in contemporary European art. After studying economics in his native city between 1969 and 1972, he studied photography with Denis Brihat between 1973 and 1975. In 1977 he made his first Site, a photograph that will be part of the series that will find its definitive title in Tableaux and that will be presented for the first time as a group at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1994. Almost simultaneously, in 1978, he began to work as assistant to the photographer and filmmaker William Klein, an activity he maintained until 1981, when he decided to devote himself entirely to his artistic activity. Between 1983 and 1987, he entered a phase of collaborative work with Bernard Bazile and, under the name BAZILEBUSTAMANTE, attracted the attention of the art world with his projects on visual codes and sign systems, exhibited in several galleries and at the Musée Saint-Pierre in Lyon in 1986. Since 1987 he has continued alone with his particular photographic work, among which sculptures, installations and silkscreen prints on methacrylates begin to emerge in an apparently asystematic project that, under its heterogeneity, configures one of the most solid, coherent and unitary artistic programs of the present time. With it he has represented France at the Venice Biennial (2003) and has participated in the Paris Biennial (1980), the São Paulo Biennial (1994) and Documentas VIII, IX and X in Kassel (1987, 1992 and 1997). His work has been the subject of monographic presentations in some of the major international museums, including the Kunsthalle Bern (1989 and 1994), Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1990), Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1992), Galerie National du Jeu de Paume, Paris (1996), Tate Gallery, London (1998), Yokohama Museum of Art (2002), Kunsthaus Bregenz and Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Etienne (2006), Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg (with Ed Ruscha) (2007), Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2008) and Villa Medici, Rome (2011). The decade of the 10s saw the beginning of retrospectives on his work, initiated in Moscow at The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation (2010), followed by the one organized by the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2011) and Sala Alcalá 31, Madrid (2012). In 2008, Jean-Marc Bustamante was awarded the Medal of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, and between 2012 and 2015 he was Director of the Toulouse International Art Festival.