Jules de Balincourt

Other Resources Articles Biography

Jules de Balincourt Exhibited at The Saatchi Gallery

Ambitious New Plans
Jules de Balincourt
Ambitious New Plans

2005

Oil on Board

102 x 152cm
Force-fed on TV and an all-American mind-junk diet, Jules de Balincourt’s paintings are crafted with democratic gusto. Painted on board, De Balincourt’s faux-naif style paintings are underscored with grainy DIY texture. His folk-art cum genius approach to painting offers a free-for-all licence for his witty and apocalyptic social commentary. In Ambitious New Plans, Jules de Balincourt comically pictures a parliament of evil: starched shirts and pink faces, the order of world business is darkly portrayed as akin to a teetotallers’ craps table. Caught somewhere between a 1960’s cold war film still and anti-Bush propaganda, Jules de Balincourt swaps the blazing crimson of Communism for down-home barn-door red.
Boxing Your Subconscious
Jules de Balincourt
Boxing Your Subconscious

2005

Oil and enamel on panel

61 x 122 cm
Untitled (Bull)
Jules de Balincourt
Untitled (Bull)

2005

Mixed media

40.3 x 61 x 102
U.S World Studies II
Jules de Balincourt
U.S World Studies II

2005

Oil and Enamel on Panel

122 x 173cm
Jules de Balincourt borrows from the pop tradition of Jasper Johns to reinvent the American map according to his own satirical world order. In U.S World Studies II, Jules de Balincourt divides the US into a jumble of brightly coloured squares – all-inclusive but without logic (Florida’s been transported to the mid-west, and California’s now the Deep South). Jules de Balincourt pictures this new America as a self-contained rainbow-hued continent of disunity, pitted against the dark forces of the rest of the world: a swarthy no-man’s-land comprised of dwarfed and sketchy nations of dubious consequence.
U.S World Studies III
Jules de Balincourt
U.S World Studies III

2005

Oil, Acrylic and Enamel on Panel

150 x 183cm
In US World Studies III, Jules de Balincourt turns national politics into a game of formalist composition. Rendering the entire country in Republican red (die hard Democrat zones are given a muddy rouge cover up), and allocating each state with coloured bands of financial affiliation, Jules de Balincourt presents a nation artistically adjusted for visual (if not political) harmony. Placed against a white ground, and elegantly framed with black contours, Jules de Balincourt clumsily imitates the style of maps found in 20th century text books: suggesting a wilful and humorous alteration of official history.
United We Stood
Jules de Balincourt
United We Stood

2005

Oil and Acrylic on Panel

41 x 51cm
Mimicking the graphic design of 1940’s newsreel credits, Jules de Balincourt’s United We Stood provocatively harks back to a time when US patriotism was untroubled and convincing. Painted in vibrant colours, Jules de Balincourt renders this logo strange: transplanting history to a contemporary context, its significance is lost amidst graffiti and disco era reference. Made with spray paint stencils and tape-ruled brushwork on wood panel, Jules de Balincourt’s authoritarianism suggests a lurid sub-plot of make-do survivalism.

Jules de Balincourt’s sculptures are created with the same home-brew imaginativeness of his paintings. Crude and funny, they champion crafty determination, inspiration and the power of grass-root enthusiasm. Untitled (Bull) is a withering miserable beast. Sewn together like an abused stuffed toy, it bleeds patriot colours of red, white, and blue. Jules de Balincourt caricatures a raging market on its last legs: an orphan-like object, repugnant, yet pathetically simpatico.
People Who Play and The People Who Pay
Jules de Balincourt
People Who Play and The People Who Pay

2004

oil and enamel on panel

127 X 122cm
Painted postcard pretty, Jules de Balincourt’s The People Who Play and The People Who Pay puts the lives of ’the beautiful ones’ under scrutinous surveillance. A generic symbol of luxury, this anonymous hotel could be anywhere: amidst the requisite palm trees and slightly shabby glass towers, sunburnt tourists mill about in their nowhere world of privilege. Within the aura of leisure, the all Black staff bustle unnoticed, their stealth-like omni-presence duplicitously reassuring. Picturing vacation life in all its ’idyllic’ glory, de Balincourt presents a precarious and humorous view of 4 star resort cum bourgeois ghetto.
Internal Renovations
Jules de Balincourt
Internal Renovations

2006

Two panels, acrylic, oil and spray paint on panel

220 x 300cm
Jules De Balincourt’s Internal Renovations pokes sly fun at European political and economic structures. Portraying a continental landscape with postcard twee-ness, De Balincourt conceives this idealised slice of Bavariana as an interactive museum display. Reflecting a desperate preservation of post-war romanticism, De Balincourt’s village glistens with the false identity of nostalgia tourism. Transversed by speeding Euro-Rails, his picturesque scene sets up a metaphorical premonition of train wreck waiting to happen.
I Infect You, You Infect Me
Jules de Balincourt
I Infect You, You Infect Me

2006

Oil and enamel on panel

121.9 x 213.4cm
Jules de Balincourt’s I Infect You, You Infect Me posits the tensions of abstract painting as a ground for warfare. Flanked on either side by slogans in hand rendered techno font, De Balincourt’s composition is unleashed with parodic authoritarianism. Rendered with the hard edged graphics of primitive special effects, coloured bands explode towards each other, colliding in the centre in a ball of spindly chaos. With its humble aesthetics, De Balincourt’s painting portrays aggression with a pathetic sympathy, outlining the unspoken rules of basic human interaction.

Jules de Balincourt's Biography

Jules de Balincourt
Born in 1972 Paris, France
1998 BFA, California College of Arts and Crafts, San Francisco
2005 MFA, Hunter College, New York
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York


SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS


2007
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

2006
Accidental Tourism and the Art of Forgetting, Arndt and Partner, Berlin, Germany

2005
This is Our Town, Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL), New York, NY

2004
Armory Show / LFL Gallery, New York

2003
Land of Many Uses, LFL Gallery, New York
Solo exhibition, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston

2000
Solo Exhibition, Space 743, San Francisco.

1998
Solo Exhibition, Soapbox Gallery, Venice


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS


2006
USA TODAY, Royal Academy of Art, London, UK
New York Contemporary: Art Times Squared, Hangart –7, Salzburg, Australia
Our Town, HUT Hudson Untitled Foundation, Hudson, New York
Reverence, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York
Collection 2005/06, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium
Metro Pictures, The Moore Space, Miami
Down By Law, at The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Don’t Abandon the Ship, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston
Humor Me, H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City
Notre histoire…, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

2005
Greater New York PS1/MOMA, Queens

2004
Trunk of Humors, Deitch Projects, New York
4 und 4, Muller DeChiara, Berlin, Germany
The Dreamland Artist Club, Creative Time / Coney Island, New York
True Stories, Johnson City Comm. College Art Gallery, Overland Park
Collection (or How I Spent a Year) PS1/MOMA, New York
Rowdy Remix, ATM Gallery, New York
American Stars ‘n Bars, Chapman University Guggenheim Gallery, Orange

2003
Summer Jam, Peres Projects, Los Angeles
College Art Association MFA Selection Exhibition, New York
Today’s Man, John Connelly Presents, New York
My people were fair and had cum in their hair (but now they're
content to spray stars from your boughs), Team Gallery, New York

2002
Brooklyn Front, Other Routes (Mixed Greens), Brooklyn
Art Hut, Nutty, San Francisco

1999
Southern Exposure, 15 th Annual Hospitality House, San Francisco