BORY Jean François

Jean-François Bory (Paris, 1938) is a French poet, visual artist, writer, filmmaker, and publisher, and one of the leading figures in visual and experimental poetry of the second half of the twentieth century. His work transcends the boundaries of traditional literature, transforming letters, words, books, and typewriters into artworks. Through typographic compositions, collages, artist's books, films, and three-dimensional objects, Bory explored the relationship between language and image. His publishing work, through international magazines and publications, also helped spread the European poetic avant-gardes and revive the Dadaist legacy.

Education and early literary experiences

Jean-François Bory was born in Paris on February 5, 1938. He spent part of his childhood in Southeast Asia, where he developed an early interest in writing and publishing. During his years in Vietnam, while still very young, he created a handwritten literary magazine with some of his companions, titled L'Encrier. This experience anticipated an activity that would become central to his career: using publication not only as a means of disseminating texts, but as an independent space for artistic experimentation.

Between 1958 and 1961, he served in the military during the Algerian War. After returning to France, he resumed his studies and also worked in the field of information. In the early 1960s, he gradually came into contact with experimental poetry circles, at a time when many European artists were challenging the divide between writing, visual arts, and performance.

The emergence of visual poetry

In the mid-1960s, Bory abandoned the idea of poetry as a simple succession of verses. The word became a visual element, with form, size, and position in space. In his compositions, letters could be repeated, isolated, superimposed, or arranged according to geometric structures. The page was no longer merely a surface on which to read a text: it became a surface to observe. This transformation brought Bory closer to concrete poetry, a language in which meaning also arises from the graphic arrangement of words.

His research nevertheless retains a strong conceptual component. The artist does not merely construct images using letters, but reflects on how communication works, the limits of language, and the conventions that govern reading.

The Early Exhibitions and Arithmetic Texts

In 1966, Bory presents an exhibition of his verbo-visual experiments at the Number Ten Gallery in London. Among the works from this period, the so-called arithmetical texts stand out, in which writing is subjected to processes of organization and transformation. The relationship between sign and meaning becomes unstable. Numbers, letters, and graphic structures suggest the possibility of constructing a language in which the visual component is as important as the verbal one. L's frequent use of black and white accentuates the rigor of the compositions and focuses attention on the relationships between the elements.

Artist's Books and Once Again

One of the most important areas of Bory's output is the artist's book. From the 1960s onward, he produced publications in which format, page layout, page sequence, and graphic structure became essential parts of the work. In 1968, he published Once Again in New York, an anthology devoted to international experiments in visual poetry. The volume documents a tradition encompassing calligrams, Dada experiments, and the explorations of contemporary avant-gardes. Bory sees the book as a tool capable of preserving and simultaneously transforming language.

The reader does not simply follow a text: they move through a succession of images, signs, and typographic constructions. This attention to the materiality of the publication would accompany the artist throughout his career.

Approches, Agentzia, and L'Humidité

Bory plays an important role in creating international networks dedicated to experimental poetry. With Julien Blaine, he founded the magazine Approches, published in the second half of the 1960s. He also collaborated with Jochen Gerz on the publishing project Agentzia. Between 1970 and 1975, he developed the magazine L'Humidité, which became a forum for exchange between poets, artists, and avant-garde theorists. These publications are not merely informational tools. Through their choice of materials, graphic design, and page layout, they directly contribute to artistic research.

L'editorial work helps connect practices developed in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and the United States.

Sound Poetry and Experimental Cinema

Alongside his visual research, Bory is interested in sound poetry, in which the voice and acoustic dimension become autonomous elements. He takes part in international events devoted to new forms of performance poetry. In 1967, he made the experimental film Saga, in which he explores the possibilities of transforming language through moving images. The film demonstrates the artist's interest in the transition from the page to cinematic space and time. Letters are no longer necessarily still.

They can be perceived as forms in motion, capable of creating new visual relationships.

Raoul Hausmann and the Rediscovery of Dadaism

In 1972, Bory published Raoul Hausmann et Dada à Berlin, dedicated to one of the leading figures of Dadaism. The work contributes to the rediscovery of an artist fundamental to the history of photomontage, sound poetry, and interdisciplinary experimentation. His relationship with the Dadaist legacy is particularly important. Bory recognizes in the historical avant-gardes a precedent for his own exploration of language. Like the Dadaists, he challenges the conventions of communication and uses ordinary materials to create new forms of expression.

His work, however, does not consist of simply repeating past experiments: he reworks them through the languages and technologies of the second half of the twentieth century.

Typewriters as artworks

Among the most characteristic objects in Bory's work are the transformed typewriters. L'artist modifies an instrument traditionally intended for producing text, stripping it of its practical function. In the 1975 work L'éternité, the typewriter takes on symbolic meaning connected to the permanence of the word and the transformation of the object. The machine is no longer merely a technical device. It becomes a sculpture that invites reflection on the relationship between writing, memory, and communication. In the following years, Bory further developed this line of inquiry, also creating gold-plated objects in collaboration with publisher and collector Francesco Conz.

Collage, graphics, and digital experimentation

The artist’s work also includes collage, photomontage, drawings, and graphic artworks. The compositions may combine printed letters, photographic images, and publishing materials. Bory uses these elements to alter the relationship between information and representation. In the 1990s, he also became interested in the possibilities offered by digital technologies. In 1998, he contributed to the launch of the multimedia project Son@rt, dedicated to disseminating and preserving experimental research. L's interest in new tools demonstrates the continuity of an exploration that considers language a constantly evolving system.

L's artistic legacy

Jean-François Bory developed a practice spanning poetry, publishing, film, graphic art, and sculpture. His work shows how writing and image can become parts of a single artistic language. Artist’s books and verbo-visual compositions represent an important contribution to the history of experimental poetry. Transformed typewriters and three-dimensional objects further expand this exploration, showing how the tools of communication can themselves become artistic subjects.