French poet, painter and sculptor, born in 1935 in Boulogne-Billancourt.
Life
At school, a philosophy teacher introduced Jean-Claude Silbermann to psychoanalysis and Surrealism; at around eighteen, reading Apollinaire’s Alcools made him decide to become a poet. He published his first collection in 1959 and took part in the activities of the Surrealist group until it dissolved in 1969. He co-edited the review Bief (1958-1960) and contributed to La Brèche and L’Archibras. He signed the Declaration of the 121 (1960), the manifesto Pour un demain joueur (1967) and the Prague Platform (1968).
In 1962, on the advice of the painter Pierre Jaouën, he took up drawing and made his first “signs” (enseignes) in cut-out wood. His first exhibition, Enseignes sournoises (Sly Signs), took place in 1964 at the Galerie Mona Lisa in Paris, with a preface by André Breton. In 1965 he took part in L’Écart absolu, the eleventh International Surrealist Exhibition, at the Galerie de L’Œil, with Sauve qui peut, and designed the exhibition’s central totem, Le Consommateur.
He then took part in the activities of the Phases movement. He has taught at several national art schools (Bourges, Nice, Limoges, Cergy-Pontoise). His works have been shown notably at MAMCO in Geneva, in Prague, Stockholm and Brest, and at the Centre Pompidou.
The work
Poetry, drawing in ink or pencil, songs, prints, objects: Silbermann’s work moves between disciplines. His sly signs are, according to Alain Joubert, images painted “automatically”, cut out of wood and seemingly floating on the wall. Dream and the unconscious remain its guiding thread.
“Poetic evidence stands at the crossroads of three roads: poetry, love, freedom. There stands Silbermann.” (André Breton)
Exhibitions and collections
- La Voyante (1961, oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm; formerly in the collections of André Breton and Arturo Schwarz), lent by the gallery to the exhibition Surréalisme at the Centre Pompidou (4 September 2024 to 13 January 2025), acquired in 2025 by the Musée national d’art moderne.
- Hold-Up !, La Banque, musée des Cultures et du Paysage, Hyères, 25 March to 4 June 2023.
Looking back at their exhibitions
- Surrealist Prelude 2024