Francis Baudevin

Francis Baudevin was born in Bulle, Switzerland, in 1964. He lives and works in Lausanne.

Francis Baudevin creates paintings from found compositions of graphics designed for various products, primarily pharmaceuticals, as well as logos and album covers. In the appropriation, Baudevin's main act is that of removal: he takes away the type, leaving only the graphics, and so no products are identified or advertised. He never varies the colors from those of the original, and his only real departure is scale, with the original enlarged to the canvas or the wall by ten times or more.

In basing his paintings on package design and logos, he is in effect taking back, or re-appropriating, the history that influenced its commercial counterpart. “I prefer to participate in reviving modernist abstraction,” Baudevin has said, “rather than [to] comment on some observation or other as to the exhaustion of forms and concepts. I am not resigned at all—on the contrary, I feel a real empathy toward the cultural project of modernity”. Olivier Mosset, writing on Baudevin in 2000, commented, “He neutralizes the idealistic weight that is sometimes carried by abstract art by making his method clear”.

— Courtesy JRP Ringier

 Available works

 Exhibitions

Selected outdoor exhibitions

Documentation about Francis Baudevin

Francis Baudevin’s Biography (French)

Francis Baudevin’s Biography (English)

Emmanuel Grandjean, « Francis Baudevin et le club des 4 », 2014 (French)

Bob Nickas, « Francis Baudevin », 2009 (French)

Bob Nickas, « Francis Baudevin », 2009 (English)

Christophe Cherix, “Francis Baudevin, Hier et Aujourd’hui”, 2009 (French)

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