Jules de Balincourt

Zach Feuer Gallery, New York

New York, Zach Feuer Gallery, Jules de Balincourt: This Is Our Town, March - April 2005

Royal Academy of Arts, ed., USA Today, London, 2006, pp. 38-39, illustrated in color

This work is in very good condition overall. There are scattered pinpoint losses at the edges and light evidence of handling. Additionally, there a few scattered unobtrusive surface abrasions. Under ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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With its vividly strong colors and politically charged composition, US World Studies III is one of Jules De Balincourt's most iconic works and the largest of three from this significant and early series. Born in France in 1972 and having studied in San Francisco before moving to New York, De Balincourt in his visual language fuses Post-war American Pop culture with a very personal folk-naïf style. An artist with an ardent political vision, in the present work De Balincourt renders a map of the United States, a seemingly benign and recognizable image, as an overtly visual treatise on the flawed state of the American political system.

De Balincourt's critical approach to contemporary politics translates into an image of a dystopian world, which the artist filtrates through his signature colorful and child-like lens. Megan Ratner observed, "De Balincourt pokes genial fun at his adopted society, and his work is graced with a larky pictorial humour," (Megan Ratner, "Jules de Balincourt," Frieze, May 2005). De Balincourt painted US World Studies III in 2005 after George W. Bush's re-election and exacts the political landscape of the United States at the time by coloring with red each State that supported the Republican Party and lists the corporations that have given support to the President. The legend describes in detail the funds given to the GOP during the Republican campaign and breaks down the percentage given by major companies, such as Wal-Mart and Kmart, thereby demonstrating De Balincourt's exceptional facility to allegorize the biography of his nation. US World Studies III captures the critical psychology of American contemporary culture with brilliant cogency via stunning pictorial means.