François Durif

Born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1968, François Durif is a writer and artist. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris, his work constantly questions the status of the contemporary artist and his prerogatives. In his first exhibitions, he alternated between interior decorator and plasterer-painter, developing an art of discretion. Each time, he takes a long-term approach, recording his actions in situ and producing a text documenting his progress. Following a skills assessment, he left the art world to become a funeral assistant and master of ceremonies at the Parisian undertaker L’Autre Rive (2005-2008). Twelve years later, he looks back on this singular experience in his first story, Vide sanitaire, published by Verticales in October 2021. He addresses the reader with the same frankness as during his performances in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.

It was in this recovered energy that he conceived his writing project at Villa Medici. He took the word “confetti” as an object, investigating this curious projectile and its successive moults: first of plaster – Italian confetti – then of paper – Parisian confetti. As its history is inextricably linked with that of the carnival, he is studying them together, with a view to gradually opening up to the heterotopia of the festival and involving other residents in the organization of a carnival at the Villa Médicis for Mi-Carême 2023. At the same time as writing, he is converting part of his archives into confetti – a way of materializing the luxury of time offered by this localized utopia that is the Villa Médicis. For him, writing, just as much as confetti-making, is a manual activity that requires the ability to cut – to decentralize.