Trivia

Vautier died of suicide by firearm on 5 June 2024, at the age of 88, after his wife had died from a stroke the previous evening.

Vautier joined George Maciunas in the Fluxus artistic movement, in October 1962.

Vautier ran a record shop called Magazin between 1958 and 1973.

His work is included in some of the most important collections in the world, including MoMA in New York and Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Vautier long defended the rights of minorities in all countries, and he was influenced by the theories of François Fontan about ethnism. For example, he defended the Occitan language (southern France).

He was the great-grandson of the Swiss painter Benjamin Vautier (1829-1898).

Ben Vautier also known mononymously as Ben was a French visual artist.

In 1959, Vautier founded the journal Ben Dieu.

He was also active in Mail-Art and was mostly known for his text-based paintings or écritures, begun in 1953, with his work Il faut manger. Il faut dormir ("One must eat. One must sleep."). Another example of the latter is L'art est inutile. Rentrez chez vous ("Art is Useless, Go Home").

Vautier discovered Yves Klein and the Nouveau Réalisme in the 1950s, but he quickly became interested in the French dada artist Marcel Duchamp and the music of John Cage.