Jean-François Bory biography

Jean François Bory is a French artist among the greatest exponents of French visual poetry. Born in Paris in 1938, the city where he still lives and works today.
Starting from 1965 he dedicated himself to sound poetry, participating in various music festivals, such as Aktion und Saben, at the Kunsthalle in Bern in 1967.
Also starting from the mid-1960s, Jean François Bory approached visual poetry and began working on his first Artist's Books. In the following years, he began collaboration with various publishing houses based in the United States, in France and even in Italy, publishing carefully crafted artist books details, both regarding the layout and the graphics, as it was not only the content of the work that was important, but also its style.
To give elegance to each of his compositions, the artist decides several times to use white and black, as he found these shades much more intense and endowed with personality than the colors which, according to him, managed to distract the reader, making him lose the very essence of the final meaning.
In the following years, Jean François Bory continued to work on the representation of the book, also approaching sculpture, as his aim was to create complete compositions that were able to exploit the at the same time visual, three-dimensional sound art, elements that will characterize the artist's poetry and editorial activity in every phase of his life and production.
Since 1966 the artist founded numerous magazines, some in collaboration with Julien Blaine, among which the most important is called Approches. In 1968 he also collaborated with Jochen Gerz, with whom he published several anthological magazines included in the Agentzia series. Another magazine published in New York, entitled Once Again, also has the same success.
The successes, however, did not take long to be seen even in Italy where, in 1970, a French-language magazine entitled l'Humiditè was born, which often saw a collaboration between the artist and other exponents of the visual poetry, who could enjoy a common space to exchange their opinions and find points of agreement on this topic which is so fascinating but little known to the public.
In 1974 Jean François Bory joined the International Group of Visual Poetry, better known as the Group of Nine, which also included Eugenio Micini, Michele Perfetti, Sarenco , Lucia Marcucci and many others.
Among the artist's most famous works we certainly find The End III from 1971, where a simple stylized book is reproduced on the sand and also All over, where the same book is reported on an emulsified canvas exploiting three dimensions.
Some sculptures are also very famous, such as the Eternitè, created in 1980 and born from the assembly of several volumes, which testify to the importance that the artist gives to culture.
In the 2000s the works of Jean François Bory took on particular connotations, such as Autodafé, which sees the printing of some letters replicated in different styles which confer a sense of harmonious movement on a plexiglass plate.
In 2006 the artist also dedicated himself to the creation of some sculptures depicting different models of writing machines and truly unique three-dimensional books.
Since 2008 the works have returned to being quite linear and rather simple, suggesting that the poet's vision of art is based on a single cycle destined to repeat itself over time.