Jean Benoît was born
in Québec, Canada and studied in the Montréal school of Fine
Arts.
Has been living in Paris since 1947. Meets André Breton in 1959.
Joins the surrealist movement.
*
May 68, flash in the pan
and bonfire, sismic turbulences and telluric alliances while I met Claire.
People used to call her "Boubou". Everyday when I met her, so
exalted and dashing, marching among the first rows of the demonstrations,
I shouted out while embracing her : "Boubou, you are beautiful ! Beautiful
as the Popocatepelt when it boils !"
I sometimes happened - in order to seduce Claire - to be at the outposts
of the fight.
The trajectory of my revolted thought had come to be bored of these paving
stones, the efficiency of which what is only too often derisory.
So it came to my mind to make use of missiles of a similar precariousness.
Hence I happened one day to come to Place de la Bastille, facing the CRS-SS
with a bag full of Kanak skulls that I had brought back for my job from
one of my trips in Oceania. And I had taken care of labelling each one of
them with the most famous names : La Pérouse, Cook, Bougainville,
Mindana, etc...
In my mind, I was filling a blank, and at the same time, I was taking an
old, stubborn and obsessing revenge.
As a matter of fact, I will always have thought that the arrival of the
white man on these virgin lands shall have irreversibly destroyed the magnificient
mechanism of these so-called primitive cultures, the gearing of which I
can only compare with those of my grand father's gold watch.
On another hand, in order to be fully in fashion, I had painted 2 of these
skulls, one in red with this inscription on the forehead "Ne crâne
pas, soit modeste !" ("don't show off, be modest"), and the
other one in black with "Mort, la vie te projette !" ("Death
! Life projects you !"). No need to add that the effect was both disconcerting
and sublime : see the skulls of these cannibalistic nobles bouncing on the
helmets of these savages !
Notes :
1- CRS : "Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité"
is a type of police units that were uinitially created by a socialist govrnmentan
used a lot against demonstrations in FRance in may 1968. SS refers to the
well known type of nazi units. "CRS-SS" was the most used and
famous slogan during the "may 68 events" in France.
2 - "Crâner" i.e. "to show off" is spelled the
same and sounds the same as the French word for "skull" "i.e.
crâne.
