Born in 1935 in Paris, deceased in 1995, Michel Journiac entered the seminary in 1956 and left it six years later. An artist, professor and researcher, he then became a major figure of the artistic scene of the 1970s and the 1980s, instigating body art with Gina Pane and Vito Acconci. From his early paintings, such as Alphabet du corps (1965) or Signe du sang (1966), the body representation becomes a creative material. The artist’s reputation grew with the performance Messe pour un corps, that he created in 1969, in which the audience was invited to eat black pudding made with his own blood.

Through various media, Michel Journiac undertook a formal research based on his own identity questionings. His work was presented in several solo exhibitions, among which the Museum of modern art in Paris (1982), the Centre Pompidou (1981 and 1983), the Museum of modern art in Stockholm (1981), the Museum of contemporary art in Bilbao (1994), the Sorbonne in Paris (1995 and 2014), and more recently the Museum of contemporary art in Strasbourg (2004). Michel Journiac’s work is represented by Christophe Gaillard Gallery in Paris.