Abstract EN:

Restricted to a label (coined as the American phrase “Body art”) and converted into a theoretical object, “l’art corporel” has lost its history. This study aims at retrieving the facts that lead Gina Pane and Michel Journiac to use their body as art. It also examines the processes of socialization that enabled their work to face the critical assessment. On the basis of various sources and with a definite focus on the different forms of art facilitation, this chronicle highlights the modes of acknowledgment of “l’art corporel” in France, from its initial dismissal to its institutional admission in the Museum. The analysis of the discourses, confronted to the various aesthetic and ideological debates of the time, enables us to pin point the role of other personalities implied next to François Pluchart as defenders of this art. Thus it offers a new and widened understanding of the works embracing “l’art corporel”.