Jean-Yves Jouannais

He is also an art critic and an exhibition curator (Venice Biennale, 1995; Le Fou dédoublé. L’idiotie dans l’art du XXe siècle [« The Fool Split in Two. Idiocy in 20th-century Art »], Moscow, 2000; Lost in the Supermarket, Paris, Fondation Ricard, 2001; and soon La Force de l’art 02 [« The Power of Art 02 »], Paris, Grand Palais, April 2009). He has also started a cycle of lectures – performances titled L’Encyclopédie des guerres [« The Encyclopaedia of Wars »] at the Pompidou Center, which is scheduled to run over the next four years.
He is the author of several essays, including Des nains, des jardins. Essai sur le kitsch pavillonnaire [« Dwarfs, Gardens: An Essay on Suburban Kitsch »] (Paris: Hazan, 1993); Armand Silvestre, poète modique [« Armand Silvestre, A Modest Poet »] (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), the much noted L’Idiotie (Paris: Beaux Arts Magazine livres, 2003), Prolégomènes à tout château d’eau [« Prolegomena to Any Water Tower »] (Paris: Inventaire/Invention, 2004), as well as his first (and last) novel, Jésus Hermès Congrès (Paris: Verticales, 2001).
His essay, Artists without works, I would prefer not to was re-published in April 2009, by the Editions verticales.