JIHEL

We approached towards the end of the 70s, without more, a formal meeting between artists. We sympathized during the festival of graphics of Enghien in the 80s, our close collaboration from that time, it had to happen, the Mayan calendar predicted it.

First of all we gauged ourselves, deciphered, analyzed, to finally realize that while being different, we were in fact similar.

Him, JIHEL, in his bubble of nonviolent individualist anarchist, journalist of the written word, reporter and satirical press cartoonist, refusing for I do not always know what principle, all exhibitions or retrospectives in France, exporting to exhibitions international, Berlin, Sidney, Turin, Rome, Tokyo and most often in New York where he will settle on several occasions. Enlightened art lover, collector of raw art and primitive art, passionate about history, not the great one, no, rather the one that people forget, with its cohort of intrigues ... an unparalleled fascination for the Revolution and the Empire with its retinue of fabulous and extravagant characters, yet only one will come back and come back over its boards, like a doubt about its own initiatory journey, its name is TALLEYRAND, the name is dropped, and here it is. "CEMENT" which has united our work together over decades.

Me, in my Niçoise bubble of the Jacques MEDECIN era, working in the movement of the Nice school while refusing to join officially, preferring first to build my own itinerary away from gallery owners.

Eventually over the years that have passed we have become Jihel and I, the GOSCINNY and UDERZO of the lame devil, the Freemason.

LENZI, painter from the NICE school.

JIHEL: CONTEMPORARY MASTER OF CARICATURE

The artist Jihel is without doubt the most important practitioner of the art of caricature to be found today in France, indeed perhaps in the entire world. He is certainly the inheritor of a longstanding French tradition of caricature art, most notably practiced in the past by such masters of the form as Rostro and Orens.

Like them, he often constructs his images as montages of strange and at first seemingly incongruous elements drawn from a great variety of sources, human, animal, and inanimate.

Taken together, a narrative of sort often emerges, though its precise interpretation may vary significantly from viewer to viewer. Most often at the heart of these visual narratives is some sort of satiric commentary - upon history, upon contemporary events and popular culture, upon individuals, or upon life in general. Over the years, Jihel's creations have evolved from clusters of satiric commentaries focusing upon highly specific historic events - for example, the Armenian genocide - to somewhat more generalized depictions of the absurdity of the human condition, and with it has come in most cases a softening of tone, a movement away from harsh condemnation and towards a gentler, at times almost playful, assessment of human character.

At the same time, the artist has moved from a predominance of black and white depictions in his earlier work to an ever more lavish use of brilliant and dynamic primary colors. Although the disparate elements in his compositions may come from practically anywhere, certain visual motifs and representations are frequently repeated in seemingly endless recombination - Kaiser Wilhelm II, chamber pots, Talleyrand, Jacques Médecin (the disgraced mayor of Nice), animals of every sort from rats to rhinos, Beethoven, Masonic symbols, Marie Antoinette, the Mona Lisa, Napoleon, the comics characters known as Les Pieds Nickelés, Robespierre, and numerous others.

Each individual piece represents a unique and vivid satiric perspective upon human life and events: taken together, the large body of work created by this gifted artist constitutes the most important contribution to this genre to emerge in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It comes therefore as no surprise whatsoever that Jihel's satiric masterpieces are highly prized and sought after by collectors, the present author being most enthusiastically among their number.

Richard Meyer

Salem, Oregon

USA

JIHEL: THE CONTEMPORARY MASTER OF CARICATURE

The artist Jihel is undoubtedly, among all the followers of the art of caricature, the most important that exists today in France, and perhaps even in the whole world. He certainly inherited a long French tradition of the art of caricature, practiced in the past in particular by masters in the field such as Rostro and Orens.

Like them, he often constructs his images as montages of strange and at first sight incongruous elements drawn from various human, animal and inanimate sources.

Once associated, a sort of story often emerges, which can however be interpreted very differently from one person to another. These visual narratives are most often centered on some kind of satirical commentary on history, on contemporary events and popular culture, on people or on life in general.

Over the years, Jihel's creations have evolved: sets of satirical commentaries focused on very specific historical events, such as the Armenian Genocide, have become somewhat more generalized representations of the absurdity of the human condition, in which the your tone has often softened, moving away from harsh condemnation to move towards a lighter, sometimes almost cheerful, appreciation of human character. At the same time, the artist has moved away from the black and white representations that dominated his early works to more generously use vibrant and dynamic primary colors. Although the heterogeneous elements of his compositions can have virtually any origin, certain visual motifs and representations are frequently repeated in new combinations that seem endless - Kaiser Wilhelm II, chamber pots, Talleyrand, Jacques Médecin (former mayor de Nice dishonored), animals of all kinds, from rats to rhinos, Beethoven, Masonic symbols, Marie-Antoinette, Mona Lisa, Napoleon, comic book characters called Les Pieds Nickelés, Robespierre, and many more.

Each work represents a vivid and unique satire of human life and events; the ensemble of works created by this talented artist will have been the most important contribution to the genre to emerge at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. It is therefore absolutely no surprise that Jihel's satirical masterpieces are so prized and sought after by collectors, and especially by the author of this article, who is one of them.

Richard Meyer

Salem, Oregon

USA

AN INTERVIEW OF JIHEL BY SAM FLORES

It was to publish a paper on political activism through satirical drawing and caricature that I was brought to meet the artist Jacques Camille LARDIE dit Jihel.

I wanted an artist sincere in his convictions, an artist refused almost everywhere and who ultimately self-publishes to make himself heard and exist. As I went around the editorial offices, a name kept ringing inexorably in my ears "LARDIE"

Go for LARDIE, my choice was made.

The longest was to meet him, it was hard, very hard, always unreachable, a female voice answered me tirelessly on the phone "Leave your details, he will call you back" months have passed and still nothing, for me it was a given, I said to myself, he's my man, I had found an artist who does not run after his notoriety. So I made the headquarters of his studio in Paris and while he was going out to go to a bookstore, I introduced myself by following in his footsteps, I managed to sketch my idea for an interview. I had learned my lesson well from one of his close friends Mill Reinberg whom I had contacted before to get to him, I had to slip into the Talleyrand or Louise Michel conversation and finally talk to him about cats and animal protection. . I had been warned that he was difficult at first and that he did not like wasting his time, but I had some keys there. We agreed on the principle of a recorded conversation without taboos or exclusions but with a mixture of genres and without established order. All the same, he reserved the right to silence, which he did little after all. Often he even went beyond the question. Everything went very well overall and I was able to have my award-winning interview, I loved spending time with this artist, he marked me deeply for a long time.

SAM FLORES

Student in journalism, PARIS.

Interview conducted in May 1986.

SF: If you had to introduce yourself what would you say?

JIHEL: I don't think I am presentable in the sense that you mean it, so not much, except that I must have missed a lot of lives elsewhere, here and now and that really bothers me, it would take a second life to get rid of the first.

SF: It's not really an answer, it starts badly

JIHEL: It's mine, I always have the impression that there is something more beautiful elsewhere.

SF: But still?

JIHEL: Space and time push me to change, always, in my creation I need to feel like a stranger to the place I am in, only then do I become a conveyor of images, not always mine. elsewhere, like a time thief who will always miss an hour to finish his sentence. <

SF: So I'm going to be content with that even if I'm unsatisfied, so are you obsessed with death?

JIHEL: I wasn't really talking about death but yes and no, it is at the heart of life, of my life, of my artistic journey, so it helps me to live, it accompanies me, for a while, until 'when...

SF: Back to drawing, why did you choose satirical drawing and politics?

JIHEL: Politics imposed itself on me when I was very young, drawing also by the way, so I mixed the two and then I became a political or press cartoonist as they say, then a cartoonist, it was a door open to excess and I am excessive in everything, it is a strength but also a weakness.

SF: How is that a weakness?

JIHEL: I have always created on adrenaline rush in the face of the injustices of life and refused to self-censor an hour or a day later, the first version was for me the fairest so the good one, rarely appreciated by the applicant, refused, it was therefore self-published in fanzines or postcards within my own publishing house, often with a lawsuit at stake.

SF: Have you had a lot of court cases?

JIHEL: Dozens, there are less risks with Talleyrand and Fouché than with Pasqua or Médecin.

LAUGH.

SF: They say you have a huge talent and we are slow to do it justice

JIHEL: I don't know if I have talent but ON is an idiot, you can tell him when you meet him, I'm not looking for any recognition, I work in an almost neurotic way, a form of emotional intensity that hurts but which gives me the opportunity to implement what I can do without worrying about pleasing and even less flattering, very little for me medals, retrospectives and other nonsense.

SF: Neurotic, does that mean that you create in a daze?

JIHEL: A bit, I have this propensity to draw deep inside me this mask from the history of another, the one I'm going to perform, an execution is fraught with consequences you know, and then I always try building momentum in the anguish of a late night, it gives me obvious comfort without constantly questioning myself.

SF: You say you drew very young, how old?

JIHEL: About ten years, certainly less, I have very precise memories of a history book on the French Revolution of 1789 on which I copied engravings and I had fun putting characters like Napoleon in a situation. , Talleyrand, Robespierre, Danton etc, once drawn, I cut them out to glue them on a strong cardboard, they were my tin soldiers, they allowed me to revisit history in my own way and I can say that the hundred days or my Congress of Vienna would make any historian worthy of the name turn pale. I still have this book in my library. I only prolonged my childhood by becoming a designer.

SF: Yet you did not have this training as a press cartoonist when you left the Fine Arts?

JIHEL: Drawing is drawing, when you have the basics and imagination everything becomes possible, hold a slogan diverted from 68, my father wanted me to be an architect, my mother a fashion designer, I finished a decorator on porcelain in Limoges, not really intoxicating but hey I was in the place, had to find the opportunity to leave, it happened very quickly.

SF: In your work, is there also this passion for the history of France?

JIHEL: Work is a very big word for the little scribbler that I am, nevertheless it is true that the history of France has lived in me and this since a very young age, I have just told you about it, and without denying my political drawings, historical creations are for me a breath of fresh air and a major enrichment even if I have very often flirted with the license, and this one is not poetic, it is artistic. These creations allowed me to take a step back on existence and to forge links with characters who had no chance of meeting in real life, I rested with them.

SF: You're talking about uchronie I guess, how did you get this idea?

JIHEL: Very simply, it seemed obvious to me to make talk about the disappeared personalities to indicate to the politicians of the present time the way to follow, I started in my current affairs drawings to put them in a cloud, then on an equal footing , it worked well in my head with Jaurès, Talleyrand and Louise Michel, so I widened my field of investigation to many others, Guillaume II, Cléo de Mérode, etc ... Then I deleted the news from some series.

SF: Do you have the impression that you are at the wrong time?

JIHEL: I am well in my time and these uchronist drawings are a drop of water in the sea of my creations on day-to-day news, how many on Giscard, on Mitterrand, thousands for hundreds on Cléo.

SF: Of which note, now a few point-blank questions to relax like Proust's questionnaire. Beatles or Rolling Stones

JIHEL: Stones

SF: Your favorite French singer?

JIHEL: Léo Ferré

SF: Did you know Ferré?

JIHEL: I worked with him, for him.

SF: Your favorite actress?

JIHEL: Sandrine Bonnaire

SF: Actor?

JIHEL: Michel Simon

SF: Director?

JIHEL: Pialat

SF: Your favorite book?

JIHEL: What talking means about Bourdieu

SF: One philosopher, just one?

JIHEL: Ouch, the trap is super reductive, go Gaston Bachelard.

SF: A painter?

JIHEL: Magritte

SF: Your favorite animal?

JIHEL: The cat

SF: Your favorite color?

JIHEL: At the cat? LAUGH, I'm kidding citizen, obviously black.

SF: About this we say anarchist, what is it for you?

JIHEL: Neither god nor master, I think it's summed up well.

SF: Are you not a believer?

JIHEL: I repeat, neither god nor master

SF: Your favorite French singer?

JIHEL: Catherine Ribeiro

SF: About her in the spring of 68, Catherine Ribeiro tried to kill herself, you were there, we said ...

JIHEL: A lot has been said about everything and nothing

SF: Yet these many drawings on the singer testify ...

JIHEL: with deep respect for his militant and libertarian approach, full stop.

SF: You don't want to tell us more?

JIHEL: No comment, if all the same .... Don't talk about poetry while crushing wild flowers.

SF: Is it a code?

JIHEL: If she reads this, she will understand.

SF: But is it a Barbara song?

JIHEL: The interpretation by Catherine is subliminal, listen to it, frankly it is breathtaking.

SF: You did more drawings on her than on Ferré, doesn't that seem surprising to you?

JIHEL: No, for the man that I am, a muse was needed, we are almost twenty years after May 68 and you can notice that it is a long time since I did not do anything on her.

SF: I read somewhere that Patricia Carli ....

JIHEL: Don't read everything that is written

SF: It was just to highlight the antipodes between these two singers.

SF: Big white, a bad steel blue gaze tells me not to insist.

SF: Your favorite song?

JIHEL: Memory and the sea

SF: Performed by ...

JIHEL: It's despicable, good Catherine Ribeiro, but of course Léo Ferré.

SF: Our deal in this type of questionnaire was only one answer, so an exception. Let’s come to Talleyrand, why did this quite harmless character haunt you so much?

JIHEL: Harmless you are joking I hope, passionate about the French Revolution and the Empire, this man is the pivot of all intrigues, he could only unleash my imagination.

SF: There have been bad rumors about you, drugs, squatting, porn, etc ...

JIHEL: Difficult to concentrate with you but hey I agreed to play. Rumors are made to run, do not count on me to accompany them, I let it be said, it's part of the job, they try to destabilize me, I do not enter this game there.

SF: You mean nothing is true?

JIHEL: I leave you to your assessments and then it occupies the barge.

SF: How do you determine your artistic career?

JIHEL: I live it, I'm not looking for competition, the only anxiety is a blank page, if, if it exists, like an anxiety of not having anything more to say, it's terrifying, it can last for hours and then the evening coming, preamble to night, everything comes back, it rushes, madness in its raw state.

SF: What is your engine on the current affairs drawing?

JIHEL: In politics there is in the fall, its movement, always something that is tragedy, that's where I intervene.

SF: You have lived in many cities, countries, why this instability?

JIHEL: My answer could be what I answered your first questions, I kept this taste of the established after 68.

SF: Why are cities like Asnières or Vésinet so different?

JIHEL: Why not, fed up with Paris, the calm, the change, all that and especially the headlong rush.

SF: You who are a collector with an enormous library and all this material to work with, it is not difficult these incessant moves?

JIHEL: I always have a definitive anchor point with thousands of memories and I turn around, question of organization. For work, paper, pencils, and finding a good printer nearby, that's all I need.

SF: Thousands of memories, what are they concretely?

JIHEL: Each book is a memory, it is not a parade library, each book is read and reread.

SF: Siné, Pratt, Bedos, Higelin etc ... What are your links?

JIHEL: Distressed but real.

SF: Your answers are very often evasive, laconic, why?

JIHEL: We stop when you want.

SF: Your favorite radio station?

JIHEL: France culture

SF: Your daily newspaper?

JIHEL: Libé

SF: Your passion?

JIHEL: A passion, it's reductive, what an idea, but I have plenty

SF: Yes, which ones then?

JIHEL: My companion, books, cold water, night, rain, naturism, animals, it's endless.

SF: Your partner, how does she experience your work?

JIHEL: Well, she gets involved, she knows me by heart, she knows my silences, my anger and the dawn which still takes itself for the night, it is a saint.

SF: If we had to draw a conclusion from this interview, what would you say?

JIHEL: Th