BENJAMIN HOCHART Appointed to Individual Creative Aid (AIC)
Artist news
Patterns. Patronnes 2019 Photocopies mounted on medium, scotch tape, wooden slats Various sizes 15 signs. View of the exhibition Action! le dessin performé, Drawing Now Art Fair 13, Le Carreau du Temple, Paris, 2019
DRAC Ile-de-France
45-47 rue Le Peletier, 75009 Paris
01 56 06 50 00
Press release
Thirty-two artists have been nominated for 2020 as part of The Individual Creative Aid (ICA). This aid, supported by the Drac Ile-de-France, aims to enable the completion of a project or artistic research, without necessarily leading to the realization of a work.
Benjamin Hochart
Pulpe 2020-2021
DRAC Ile-de-France
Benjamin Hochart practices drawing, painting and sculpture using his iconography from the genre of comics and illustration. He is currently pursuing a thesis on the legacy of raw art articulated to the practice of contemporary artists that is part of a reflection on the resurgence of popular imagery and its diversion, in order to rethink our relationship to the image and its circulation.
Pulpe is the title of a second-rate American magazine that existed from the 1930s to the 1950s and mixes comics with literary forms like science fiction. The magazine is known for publishing author HP Lovecraft. Benjamin Hochart’s work is inspired by a culture of images that are both shoddy and mainstream, and his aim is to recreate a world akin to illustration, mocking the codes of good taste and at the same time thwarting the aesthetic values of contemporary art. Pulpe is an animated video reusing different types of motifs and imagery from the artist’s composite work, combining Super 8 footage shot on location and in the studio using 1:1 scale models, animation drawn on a digital tablet and hand-drawn images. Parts of the scale 1 décor are also produced by the artist, so characters are dressed in a harlequin shirt or a diagram curtain. This eclectic mix allows him to approach everyday life from a look that is both quirky and theatrical.
Benjamin Hochart’s work with popular iconography in video format emerged from two projects carried out by the artist, as a continuation of his thesis research: Seul sur le sable (Alone on the Sand) is Benjamin Hochart’s first animated video, in which a character moves over abstract motifs taken from Japanese letterheads. Parade Proteste (2019) is a performance presented at DRAWING NOW Art Fair, with five to six performers parading placards in the shape of intestines, hands or even teeth, in reference to carnival culture, an imaginary that we find again in the video Pulpe.
Marion Vasseur Raluy
Independent curator and art critic
Rapporteur for the 2020 Commission
with Marie Chênel, art critic and curator
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