Pierre Pinoncelli, one of the greatest artists of the École de Nice, remains active despite his 88 years.
Less known to the general public than the visual artists of the Nice movement (Arman, César, Sosno…), Pierre Pinoncelli is the performer of the École de Nice.
Unlike the Fluxus movement, represented in Nice by Ben Vautier, Pierre Pinoncelli’s artistic performances are carried out to denounce, using a certain violence, often with a physical risk involved.
To give just a few examples, in 1969, to denounce official art, he shot at André Malraux, then Minister of Culture, who had just inaugurated the Marc Chagall museum in Nice, not with real bullets, but with red paint, at the risk of being shot by the police protecting the minister.
In 1971, to protest against the Maoist regime, he burned his cheek with a soldering iron in front of the Chinese embassy.
In 1975, to protest against the twinning of Nice with Cape Town during apartheid, he conducted an armed attack on the Société Générale bank to demand one symbolic franc from the cashier.
In 1993, to denounce the hijacking of the Dada spirit, he urinated in Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, then gave it a violent blow with a hammer; he was sentenced to one month of suspended prison time and 286,000 francs in damages.
In 2006, he repeated the act and chipped Duchamp’s urinal again; he was sentenced to three months of suspended prison time.
In 2002, he cut off a phalanx of his little finger in public with an axe in solidarity with Ingrid Betancourt to protest against the conditions of her captivity. The finger is preserved in formaldehyde in a jar displayed at the museum in Bogota.
In total, the Nice artist will recount 22 performances, in the form of unique commemorative paintings, on large Canson sheets, in the historical gallery of the École de Nice, starting from June 24.
