Joe Boehler: A soul’s cry that echoes in Monaco
The artist Joe Boehler will be in Monaco after each screening of his documentary © Marko Stevic
You can see the artist after each screening of his documentary, and at the Art3f show from Friday to Sunday, 23-25 August.
Swiss artist Joe Boehler, renowned for his profound and emotionally compelling works, is preparing to conquer the Principality. To coincide with the exhibition at Art3f, from 23 to 25 August, the Monegasque public will be able to discover his powerful canvases and delve into his artistic universe through the documentary Cri de l’âme (Soul’s cry).
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Born in the suburbs of Strasbourg in 1945, Boehler has always felt a visceral need to create. However, it wasn’t easy to get started back then if you didn’t have the support of your parents, particularly your father. So Joe Boehler started out as a pastry chef instead. At least it was a way for him to express his art.
His atypical career, which included travelling around France as a journeyman, shaped his vision of the world and of art. His works, often made from raw materials and crafted with raw energy, are cries from the heart, testimonies to the sensitivity at his very core.
A raw type of art, a cry from the heart
The exhibition’s curator Fanny Audemars told us, “people are surprised by the diversity of his work.” It has to be said that Joe Boehler is an all-round artist, with over a thousand works, and surprises through both his creative process and his variety. It’s also difficult to attribute a particular style or movement to him. He describes his works as “an accident of mysteries,” although he admits that in the early days he was into a kind of “German Expressionism” .
Boehler’s paintings are not simply representations of reality, but rather catharses, releases of inner tensions. In his own words, it’s like “a good psychoanalysis.” In the documentary, the artist confides that he “hurts the canvas” when he creates. For him, each brushstroke in a painting is painful. It is the pain that releases a true stroke, a deep stroke that speaks, that makes the painter – and visitors – feel something.
This radically personal approach results in works in which the medium seems to be alive, trembling and suffering through a palette of vivid colours and tortured shapes, “prompting analysis by the observer”.
Inspired by miners
A recurring theme in Boehler’s work is the world of workers and craftsmen. “Without artisans, we don’t exist,” Fanny Audemars explained. Joe Boehler discovered the workers’ world in 1976. On his way back from an exhibition in Deauville, he travelled to Lorraine and came across a miners’ strike. He couldn’t understand it. “They’re closing the mines, people should be happy! Why are they on strike? I didn’t get it.”
Back home in Switzerland, the artist decided to shut himself into the salt mines to gain a better understanding of the miners’ world and their suffering. This resulted in some thirty paintings, including some of his masterpieces, which managed to capture “the power and beauty of the horror” that came out of the darkness of the mines.
This seminal moment in the artist’s career had a profound impact on his art. Fanny Audemars explained that “Joe shines the spotlight on the people in the shadows, it’s a form of recognition.”
Total immersion through an exhibition and a film
The exhibition in Monaco will feature about a dozen of the artist’s paintings, including five works that have never before been shown publicly in the Principality. Visitors can discover his style and the unusual materials he uses (concrete, glue, India ink, etc.).
In parallel, the documentary Cri de l’âme takes us deep into the artist’s world, revealing the secrets behind his creative process, his inspiration and his rich history. Three screenings are planned. The first is on Friday 23 August, at the Oceanographic Museum at 5.30 pm. The second and third will be at the Grimaldi Forum’s Salle Genevoix on 24 and 25 August at 5.30 pm
Boehler attaches great importance to dialogue with the public. He wants his works to prompt emotions and questions, and to encourage people to find their own interpretations. That’s why round-table discussions will be held after the film screenings, offering a rare opportunity to talk to the artist, the curator, the distributor and other art enthusiasts.
A must-see film in which we discover the life of this artist and understand the relationship between his art and his sometimes not-so-easy life. From the little canal (in Alsace) he used to jump into before pouring (stolen) paint into it, to his artistic success, the superb, touching and moving film skilfully depicts Joe Boehler and the creative process of a consummate artist.
Practical details:
Documentary screenings:
- Oceanographic Museum on 23 August at 5.30 pm
- Grimaldi Forum, Salle Genevoix on 24 and 25 August at 5.30 pm
Exhibition:
- Art3f, Chapiteau de Fontvieille from 4 pm on 23 August to 7 pm on 25 August
Original (French language) article by Théo Briand