Nicolas

Le Bault

A wonderful video chronicle by Frederika Abbate of my novel A Youth of Europe, available on her YouTube channel.

I invite you to listen to this extensive interview about my artistic journey and my latest novel, "Une Jeunesse d'Europe."
I discuss art, censorship, the malaise of civilization, and all the current taboos, in a climate of absolute freedom.
A big thank you to the entire Radio Méridien Zéro team for giving me the opportunity to speak.

"By the second issue, the psychological tension begins to come full circle: some of our suspicions are confirmed, while enough ambiguity remains to keep the reader in a constant state of suspense. Why is there a girl tied to the basement wall, with tentacle-like growths on her skin? Your guess is as good as mine, but we know it’s inevitably connected to Karine’s father—and that alone is enough to send a chill down your spine or stir a deep unease. Because now, we’re left wondering what this man is truly capable of."

It is extremely difficult for me to sum up my new book, A Youth of Europe, which has just been published by Éditions de la Reine Rouge, in a few words.
That’s why I’ve put together this short video presentation, which I invite you to watch right away.
For about an hour and a half, I took the time to share my intentions without revealing the core of the plot. You'll gain insight into my worldview and my creative approach.
Feel free to share it around.
And most importantly, enjoy this content, which will surely make for an excellent evening.

Conference on May 6, 2024 at the Cercle Péguy around my essay "Transhumanism, terminal stage of capitalism".

On my essay “Transhumanism, terminal stage of capitalism”: “As for the virtual world that transhumanism offers as an alternative to reality, it foresees the advent of a “replacement being entirely adapted to the norms and logic of the economic world , whose own desires could only be formulated through demands immediately solvable on the market. "It will at the same time be the end of politics."

I was invited on February 22, 2023 at the studios of Sud Radio to talk with André Bercoff about my essay "Transhumanism, terminal stage of capitalism".

... "There is indeed class struggle in this essay, workers, the proletariat, inequality and wealth, but there are also the avatars of this neo-liberalism: uberization, self- entrepreneurship, automation but also artificial intelligence and transhumanism. Nicolas Le Bault speaks of "transhumanist cultural revolution" and as a new tool at the service of modern capitalism."...

« […] there is The Lost Dimension of Childhood, its apparent stability, its colors, its landscapes, its sensations, whose irreversible and brutal exit is at the heart of the plot. From any bygone era invariably remains a certain nostalgia, which is necessarily imprinted in the book. Finally, La Dimension Perdue is also, at another level of reading, and according to a certain number of clues scattered throughout the book, a refuge, a secret place out of time and sheltered from trouble, where the characters in the story tend to take refuge to escape the violence.. [..] »

« […]  Atypical draftsman, Nicolas Le Bault draws universes not to put in all hands. From anorexia to incest via self-mutilation, the themes he develops are very much in tune with a society in the throes of social doldrums. For his new series The Lost Dimension, he offers a graphic novel of fantastic horror which is the chronicle of a world in the process of falling apart. Produced in violent colors, the result is reminiscent of the worlds of Finnish cartoonist Tommi Musturi and his comics Future [..] »

“[…] Nicolas Le Bault constructs work after work a unique universe, as he did in the superb and no less disturbing La Fille-Miroir. Lost innocence, dirty childhood, incest, violence and trauma constitute from this first part the heart of the dark story of Nicolas Le Bault. The cycle that is beginning promises to become a landmark work. [..]”

“[…] Nicolas Le Bault is a disturbing visual artist, the creator of a disturbing review and a publisher of disturbing monographs… I had already posted here, in this blog, a few lines on the strange review-magazine “WHITE RABBIT DREAM” which he has been publishing for a few issues and which denotes in the world of alternative journals, beyond his political and critical commitment or his Sadian universe, by a particularly ironic frozen formatting [...]”

"[...] I have always sought to constitute around my artistic work, through my editorial activity, a parallel society on the community model, by bringing together artists according to familiarity of universes, aesthetic convergences, and kinship themes. [..]”

“[…] The first quality of the magazine is to highlight the work of the artists present in the issue. The drawings, photos, sculptures are printed in full page, thus giving the reader's gaze the full extent of the artist's talent, to the point of stinging the eyes - especially when the subject is Violence [...]"

“[…] Under the pen of Nicolas Le Bault, also the author of comic strips that are just as gore and which open the issue, violence becomes an index, not to say an instrument in the service of liberal ideology. Haro therefore for him on the ruling classes ("the global hyperclass", "the liberal bourgeoisie"), the consumer society, big capital and the European Union ! The message has the merit of being clear and in any case very current, while the embers of the Yellow Vests and police violence are still hot. [...] »

“[…] Transgressive, not only is the contemporary art magazine White Rabbit, but it claims it even on its cover page. Nicolas Le Bault, who has been mentioned several times on Bla Bla Blog, is at the helm of an exciting artistic and editorial project. White Rabbit is not only the title of a magazine whose signatures have been enriched since the first issue (we are at the third), but also a "creature" as Nicolas Le Bault declares. A very disturbing character in truth, with an indeterminate sex, wearing rabbit ears and above all stigmata: nothing better to "anxiety the universe"... This creature has the characteristic of "[ignoring] the border between good and evil. She is evil." We are warned that we are going to be shaken. [...] »

“[…] Our compatriots, on the other hand, seem to be responding to this crisis with the maximum level of consent, which I find almost disturbing. In China, it took the show of force of what a dictatorship can offer most spectacularly in terms of bringing society into line to mobilize the population against the spread of the virus. Here, in France, it was not even necessary to take authoritarian measures. The coercion seems internalized, the discipline acquired, the general obedience is irreproachable. […]”

" (...) this review is always so perverse, always so ambiguous, and always so paradoxically fresh and postpunk. Yet she grew and grew, suddenly, PAF! to reach the beautiful 21.5X29 format, square back, thick with 96 glossy pages. Change of scale and ambition therefore, and it's successful because it's superb, well printed, and it even hits the big magazine (ha, it's marked "magazine" on it now!). This side thing that could hang around in a doctor's waiting room adds to the perverseness of the object. In this issue, images, texts and comics on the theme of fear (news!), and even if it's thicker, it's still just as coherent. The mark of assured taste. (...) "

“[…] This comic strip in a new format is like a horror tale in which childhood is the first victim. There is David Lynch, Sade, Bukowski, Tim Burton, but also a bit of The Night of the Hunter in this story about an adult secret – although it is only partially revealed – discovered by a boy who will be confronted with the ban but also with death. (...) The childish universe is only an artificial decor behind which hides the odious, the madness and the incest. Little by little, the graphic work of Nicolas Le Bault builds a terrible, poetic and fascinating universe to discover. […]”

"[...] Nicolas Le Bault's universe is one of those rather incredible discoveries that transport you to a rarely seen world: a real cabinet of curiosities, which he deploys today in the second volume of the magazine before -guard White Rabbit Dream. (...) Volume 2 of White Rabbit Dream is in itself a true work of art: a true transgressive magazine, both graphic novel and experimental review. The reader will find there the familiar characters of Nicolas Le Bault: these disturbing dolls, both perverse creatures and expiatory victims. […]”

Céline du Chéné receives in the practical Encyclopedia of bad genres the designer Nicolas Le Bault for his brand new publishing house White Rabbit Prod and for his latest work Psychic Candies released at Crocs Electriques.

" (...) Suffice to say right away that we love or hate this imagination made up of dreams, nightmares, illusions, ghosts, perversions and ambivalent characters. In any case, the touch of Nicolas Le Bault is recognizable among all: drawings straight out of childhood, expressive faces, bright colors. The universe of childhood is recovered, recycled and dynamited with TNT in order to expose all the cruelty of the world and its absurdity. (...) "