"Fer Brulé"

BERNARD AUBERTIN

Bernard Aubertin was born in 1934 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, France. Around 1951 he began his apprenticeship at the School of Decorative Art. His meeting with Yves Klein in 1957 was a dazzling experience, which led him to produce his first four red monochrome plates the following year. His choice of this colour was spontaneous, impulsive and freed him from any chromatic manipulation of drawing, graphics and composition. His research is characterised by the exclusive use of red, a privileged colour and symbol of blood and at the same time of the element of fire. In 1961 he participated in the ZERO group in Düsseldorf together with Mack, Piene, Uecker and in 1957/58 in the NUL group in Amsterdam. He also came into contact with Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana. In parallel with his monochromes, in 1961 he produced his first tableaux feu (fire paintings), and in 1962 he produced his first burned books, which he would return to with Livres brûlés et à Brûler (burned books and books to be burned), adding explosive matches, fuses, fulminate sticks, bags of smoke powder, candles, white matches, etc. inside each page of the book and inviting the spectator to burn the book. His is a curiosity related to the work of fire and the reflection of the flame. He says of his work: "There are two colours in my work, the colour of fire, of caramelisation, of the cremation of black or the red colour of painting monochromes." From the tableaux clous (nail paintings), which are covered in paint and thus perfectly represent flames, to the tableaux fils de fer (wire paintings), the dessin de feu (fire drawings) or the parcours d'allumettes (pathways of matches), right up to the performances of pianos set on fire in 1988, the burnt-out cars and the semema of the 1990s. His artistic activity took place mainly in Paris, then in Brest, and was punctuated by frequent stays in Italy between the 1970s and the 1990s. His monochrome work has recently developed towards black, white or gold monochromes. He died in Reutlingen, Germany, in 2015.