Born on April 30, 1964 in Paris. Lives and works in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Awarded a diploma in 1992 by the Superior National School of Fine art, Paris, France.
Carte Blanche, Foundation Villa Datris,
Espace Monte Cristo, Paris, France
Window display for Hermès in Taipei, Taïwan
Maison Hermès display window, New York, USA
RX Gallery, Paris, France
Saint Sauveur Station, Lille, France
The Hameau des Baux, Paradou, France
Utopia, Ilôt Comtesse, Lille, France
Maison Hermès display windows, Hong Kong, China
Public commission for the « Extatiques »
Paris La Défense, France
Snail shells installation
Marc-Antoine Barrois–galerie Véro Dodat Paris, France
RX Gallery Paris, France
Window display for Hermès in Dubai,UAE
Autumn shop window
Maison Hermès Shanghai, China
Public order, Knokke-le Zoute, Belgium
Tournay-Solvay park, Brussels, Belgium.
Galerie Mitterrand, Paris, France
Window display for Hermès in Tokyo, Japon
Production of a monumental giraffe for a cruise ship, Anthem of the Seas
Installation production for the restaurant Hexagone, Paris, France
MAMO, Marseille, France.
Rue de Sèvres, Paris(6ème) France
JF Fourtou, Aeroplastics
Brussels, Belgium
Pierre Budin School, Paris (18ème)
France
JF Fourtou, JGM. Galerie
Paris, France (cat.).
JGM. Galerie
Paris, France (cat.)
Galerie Anspach
Brussels, Belgium
Rome, Italy
Galerie Iconoscope
Montpellier, France
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France (cat.)
Galerie Pièce Unique
Paris, France
Aéroplastics
Brussels, Belgium
La Verrière
Brussels, Belgium
Galerie Angel Romero
Madrid, Spain
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France (cat.)
Galerie Angel Romero
Madrid, Spain
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France
Galerie Angel Romero
Madrid, Spain
French Institute of Madrid,
Spain
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France
Le Voyage à Nantes, Place Royale,
Cour de l’Hôtel de l’Hôtel de Chateaubriant,
Nantes, France
Installation, Domaine Vranken Pommery, Reims, France
Installation (Bees), Hangar Y, Meudon, France
Pommery Experience #17 - One place, three exhibitions, Domaine Vranken-Pommery, Reims, France
18 artists in the garden - Contemporary art tour, Château de Fontainebleau, France
Utopia, Hospice Comtesse Museum, Lille, France
RX Gallery Paris, France
Le Domaine Pommery, Reims, France
Villa Datris Foundation
L’Isle-sur-la Sorgue, France
Centre for contemporary art (CAC) Meymac
Meymac, France
Rivau’s castle, France
Aeroplastics, Brussels, Belgium
OÖ Kulturquartier Linz, Austria
« Design Shanghai », Shanghai, China
« Constructeurs d'absurde, bricoleurs d'utopie »,
CAC, Meymac, France
« Habiter », Domaine de Chamarande, France
Jardin du Hauvel, Normandy, France
Lille 3000, Lille, France
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, France.
Commissaire Abdellah Karroum
Visual Arts Exhibition in the 3rd AiM International
Biennale, Marrakech, Morocco.
Palazzo Riso, Palermo, Italy
Contemporary Art Museum, Sao Paulo
and Niemeyer Museum, Brasilia, Brazil.
(curator Cécile Bourne-Farrell)
Centre Photographique d'ïle-de-France
Pontault-Combault, France
Abbaye Saint André, Centre d'art
contemporain de Meymac, France.
Museu Nacional do Complexo da Republica
e Chancelado, Brasilia and Museu de Arte
Contemporânea da Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil.
FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier,
France (cat.).
Iconoscope, Montpellier, France
Grande Halle de la Villette, Paris, France (cat.).
(curator Ami Barak) Berlin, Germany (cat.).
Aeroplastics contemporary, Brussels, Belgium.
Luxe Gallery New York, USA.
Galerie GP & N Vallois, Paris, France
Nuit Blanche, Musée Victor Hugo, Paris, France (curator Ami Barak).
(curator Jean-Paul Blanchet), Abbaye de Meymac, Meymac, France.
(with Alain Bublex), Art 34 Basel, Switzerland.
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France
Galerie Clairefontaine, Luxembourg
Group Show, Art Space Witzenhausen,
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Galerie e.l.o, Uzès, France
(with Gilles Barbier, Alain Bublex, Jean-François Fourtou
Saverio Lucariello), Synopsis, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Biennale de Cetinje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia
Wonderland, Aéroplastics, Brussels, Belgium
Galeria Bunkier Szutki, Krakow, Poland (cat.).
Curator Andrea Busto, C.E.S.A.C., Turino, Italy (cat.).
Salon (after Louise Bourgeois' proposal),
Artists Space, New York, USA (cat.).
Domaine de Chamarande, Ile-de-France, France
Art Contemporain, Parly 2, le Chesnay, France
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts,
Paris, France.
Musée Bourdelle, Paris
Marlborough Gallery, Madrid, Spain
Villa Lemot, Loire Atlantique, France
Musée d’art Moderne de Troyes, France.
Casa de Velazquez, Madrid and Paris, Spain & France
Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois
Paris, France
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts,
Paris, France
Exhibition catalog, Foundation Villa Datris, Espace Monte Cristo, Paris, France
Dilecta Editions, Paris, France
Exhibition catalog,Villa Datris Foundation
L’Isle-sur-la Sorgue, France
Domaine de Chamarande, France
Tristan Manco, Pyramyd Edition
Exhibition catalog, Musée Fesch, Ed. Palais Fesch-musée des Beaux-Arts
Milan, Silvana Editoriale, Italy
Exhibition catalog, texts by Paul Ardenne, JGM. Galerie Editions, Paris, France.
Museu Nacional do Complexo da Republica e Chancelado, Brasilia et Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de Sao Paulo Editions, Brazil.
Exhibition catalog, texts by Christian Besson, Bernard Fabvre, Emmanuel Latreille, Bernard Marcadé, Jean-Pierre Piniès, Bruno Pinchard
Méditerranée Editions et Frac Languedoc-Roussillon Editions, France.
Exhibition catalog n°27, JGM. Galerie Editions,
Paris, France
Exhibition catalog, « Gallimard » Editions,
Paris, France
Fourtou, Galerie GP & N Vallois Editions,
Belgrade, Serbia-Montenegro
C.E.S.A.C. Editions, Turin, Italie.
Ironie du sort, Group Show catalog,
Bunkier Sztuki Editions, Cracovie, Poland
Salon (after Louise Bourgeois' proposal),
Artists Space Editions, NYC, USA
Fourtou, Galerie GP & N Vallois Editions,
Paris, France
This new exhibition at the gallery RX & Slag could very well be introduced by such an announcement as it is a step in the path of the artist and the celebration of this new family now called «the Hybridus». The first milestones were set in 2020, when Jean-François Fourtou came to present his Nanitos, these little gardeners who were being quite mischievous. He reminds us of their origin : «When my daughter was little, I told her that in our house in Marrakech, there were holes in which small characters were installed that we could not see because they passed very quickly. Years later, she grew up and I had 2 children born by GPA. I thought about my Nanitos and I gave birth to them in the vegetable garden of Marrakech. As adults, they become pumpkin-headed gardeners.” As invitations were issued, notably by the Utopia festival in Lille in 2022 or on the occasion of the exhibition «Grandeur nature» at the Château de Fontainebleau in 2023, Fourtou added characters : “the Minitos à têtes de legumes”, “Mr. & Mrs. Palm à tête de palmiers”, and already has in mind to continue the adventure with beings returning to the seabed. New for this exhibition, he tackled embroidery – a skill that reminds him of his grandfather. For him, who claims to be a sculptor, it is a different approach to storytelling : each image is like a comic book box and everyone can arrange them as they want, inventing their own story.
MoreA full‐scale replication by Jean‐François Fourtou, in the neighborhood of Marrakech, of a Charente region’s house has every chance of entering the annals of art history. Replication? The word is not strong enough. Reconstruction seems more exact. On his property of Dar el Sadaka the artist has rebuilt identically the modest house, originally located in the small town of Fouras, in the Charente‐Maritime region by the shores of the Atlantic, where as a child he spent his vacations. The outside, the interior, everything that Jean‐François Fourtou has remembered accurately, is given again in the present, inspired by the various houses he spent time in during his youth (his grandparents’ house in Montreuil, another one they rented during several summers in Fouras in the Charente region…), whether it’s the furniture, its placement in the house, the color of the plaster or the wallpaper and above all the specific atmosphere of all these ancient places.
Paul Ardenne
MoreAt Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois from 16 January to 24 February 2004
At Galerie Pièce Unique from 16 January to 16 March 2004
Jean-François Fourtou approaches his work rather as if writing a Bildungsroman, with each new chapter of the initiation taking the form of an exhibition. Both author and character in his own work, he often touches on autobiography while at the same time surpassing it. He offers the heroes of his works a few extraordinary episodes, a few ordeals, and, above all, he speaks to that kind of surprise we feel at watching ourselves develop. In short, everything happens as if we were in a novel of education, woven from countless "once upon a times": each proposition may at first seem naive, but they soon turn out to be much more disturbing than the first words suggest (but then that's always the way with stories, isn't it?) [...]
Emmanuelle Lequeux
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