Umbrella Carré Delos Aurillac "Les bigoudènes" by Gérard BEAUDOIN

The artist's biography

Bigoudènes by Gérard Beaudoin

Little is known about this small provincial master, born in January 1953 in Dijon in a family of Burgundy accountants. His work is only of limited interest when one compares it to the revolutionary enthusiasm of contemporary works, initiated nearly a century ago now with Casimir Malévitch's Carré noir sur fond blanc (black square on white background) and Marcel Duchamp's Roue de bicyclette sur un tabouret (bicycle wheel on stool). It is characterized by the depiction of a single figure, strangely phallic in shape, the Bigoudène, a sort of haunting emblem allowing some uncertainty to persist as to the artist's mental health. An artist who, all things considered, was very interested in questionable practices, worked out on a couch by the hysterical patients of a certain Viennese doctor and now thankfully swept away by the continuous advances of pharmacopoeia and cognitive sciences. An excessive taste for a Latin of an often vulgar variety and approximate paradoxes attracted the attention of those who rubbed shoulders with this obscure creator who loved to paraphrase Flaubert when referring to his characters: "La bigoudène, c’est moi!" (I am the bigoudène) is what he reportedly used to reply to those who questioned him about the deep meaning of his work. …