Edi Dubien
S’éclairer sans fin
The universe of Edi Dubien depicting the bonds between childhood and nature is deeply complex and psychological. Some works are beautiful and tender, like boys and animals looking at each other face to face, breathing and touching, with children seeking solace in the company of an animal friend. Others are tinged with sadness and solitude, a sense of hurt pervading them. Notably, the drawings invariably portray dark-haired, slender boys whose fragility is suggestive of a bruised innocence.
The French artist’s exhibition S’éclairer sans fin at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris is an invitation to reflect upon these issues through a vast installation of some 200 drawings, as well as sculptures and paintings. The show also conveys an autobiographical side, alluding to Dubien’s personal history. Born in 1963, Dubien has always felt male but wasn’t recognised as such until 2014 when the French government officially amended his sex following gender-affirmation surgery. Memories of the feelings of rejection that marred his youth, as well as the traumatic trajectory towards his change of status, have fuelled his art as have the joyful experiences of engaging with nature.
«I think that the best way to transmit messages that everybody hears is through softness»
How did you conceive the exhibition?
EDI DUBIEN:
I went to visit the place and stayed there for a while, and things came to me quite naturally. The curator, Rémy Provendier-Commenne, wanted to create a link to what I’d done at the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon [in 2020] and make an installation of drawings like a curiosity cabinet. So I prepared the wallpaper and then everything else was made like a curiosity cabinet – an installation with over 200 drawings. As for the boat, I’ve always drawn boats with animals and a character, like a ride through time, on a river.
Tell us about this sculpture of a solitary boy, with tears streaming down his face, sitting in a boat surrounded by animals. It recalls Noah’s arc even though most of the animal species aren’t in pairs but alone.
EDI DUBIEN:
Alone but they’re all together. It’s like a recomposed family. It’s linked to my life and my childhood where I was very alone, and the place of each of us in quite a hard world. It’s also about showing that there are happy things as well as solitude.
The show talks about four themes: repaired childhood, identity in movement, the force of fragility, and resilience and rebirth thanks to nature. Yet the drawings aren’t divided thematically; everything is mixed together, highlighting the relationship between the boy and nature.
EDI DUBIEN:
They’re reciprocal links – the closeness, friendship, bonds and energy that go from one to the other [between the animal and the child]. It’s a way of giving the child and the animal the chance to speak, and what one finds to reconstruct oneself. The images come to mind like a story, like in a book one writes where there’s a whole thought process to develop. So I already have an idea of the running thread before I start on the thematic idea and the colours.
The drawings evoke a freedom of expression and breaking down of genres, such as the boys wearing ladybirds as earrings or the animals wearing dresses and high heels. Can you talk about how you use those codes?
EDI DUBIEN:
I have fun with all those codes to make something joyful or serious, to show people another identity, and to render things more fluid and accessible. One could laugh or smile when one sees an animal wearing heels and, at the same time, it says a lot of things. It’s about giving a place to the animal and human being in their freedom, a whole range of ideas that I translate in my own way to talk about gender and the freedom of being oneself, and of a childhood and adolescence lacking in things that prevented [me from] existing.
Your work also conveys sadness and violence, such as the boy holding a poster reading Boys Don’t Cry, alluding to The Cure’s record.
EDI DUBIEN:
The Cure and the film [of the same title, starring Hilary Swank] about a trans boy who dies at the end. It’s a very hard, true story. It’s talking about adolescence and how one feels alone having to face up to this world that’s a bit intransigent and hard. It’s a way of evoking things that I’ve lived through and giving courage to others. My drawings aren’t just self-portraits but my work is often linked to me and part of my life as a young boy – a part of my life that was a bit stolen.
How would you describe your childhood and relationship to nature?
EDI DUBIEN:
I was born in Issy-les-Moulineaux but I grew up in Paris, in the 15th arrondissement. I would spend my holidays with my grandparents in Auvergne; they were Catalans who had left Spain during Franco’s rule and came to France as refugees to escape fascism. I recall my grandfather coming to collect me when I was small and I’d say “Hello” to nature. I was very happy [in the countryside]; I had the impression that there were squirrels everywhere and that I’d made a pact with nature. It was wilder than today.
But my parents saw me as a girl and I felt like a boy, even when I was young. I always had the impression of being a bit like a transvestite. I was mistreated because of that.
Your work is very autobiographical.
EDI DUBIEN:
Yes, totally autobiographical and emotional. Absolutely. There are things that I denounce like violence towards the animal world, nature, childhood and women. I also denounce financial power, like Trump, and the violence of power towards a weaker part of the world. Ecology and the animal world have less and less place everywhere in the world and we don’t talk enough about the mistreatment of animals just as we don’t talk enough about the mistreatment of children. All of that is part of my discourse.
Would you say that your exhibition is political?
EDI DUBIEN:
Yes, exactly. But I don’t want to talk about politics in a political way. I want to talk to people. And I think that the best way to transmit messages that everybody hears is through softness even if part of my work isn’t funny at all. But I try to convey things in a way that reaches the maximum number of people.
You’ve talked about your “second birth” when you were recognised officially as a man in 2014. How did this impact your work?
EDI DUBIEN:
It changed everything! It’s really a birth when you wait for identity papers, are recognised and went to hospital [for gender-affirmation surgery]. It was a very long process and I had many years of psychoanalysis to come to terms with my childhood. When I got my identity papers, it was as if I suddenly had the right to exist. I could assert myself and show people who I was; it was a very precise “coming out” that made me feel legitimate.
I’ve always done this job [being an artist]. Before I’d been on the street but I’d always had a lot of collectors. I exhibited at Le Palace nightclub and gay nightclubs in Paris and elsewhere, although not in contemporary art venues like today. I’d had a lot of articles [in the press] but they wrote about me in the feminine form which I didn’t like. Thanks to the recognition [of my sex change], I’m seen.
What does it mean to you to now have institutions supporting your work?
EDI DUBIEN:
Honestly, it makes me want to cry. When you’ve spent your life [trying] to be seen as a man and are recognised after a difficult journey […], seeing people appreciate me and sending me messages of love every day about my work at the Musée de la Chasse is very touching. It gives me enormous confidence. It’s fantastic.
I read that you live in the countryside and that your studio is in a former barn. What can you tell us about it?
EDI DUBIEN:
My studio is in two big buildings where tractors used to be kept dating from the 18th century near Blois, along the Loire. It’s eight metres high! It’s not far from Paris by train. I wanted to live in a barn and reconnect to my childhood holidays in Auvergne. I have a small studio in Paris too.
What are you working on now?
EDI DUBIEN:
This morning I started a large picture that my gallerist will show at Art Paris. I think I’ll make a combination between the three large pictures that were exhibited at the Biennale de Lyon and what I’m showing at the Musée de la Chasse. I’m going to again do a boy linked to nature and the animal but differently.
Edi Dubien: S’éclairer sans fin is at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature until May 4th, 2025.
Interview by Anna Samson
