Ben Vautier, a French artist and agitator who often worked under the moniker Ben, and who as a core member of the anti-art collective Fluxus blurred the boundaries of high and low, art and life, while adhering to the credo “Everything is art,” died on June 5 at his home in Nice, France. He died by suicide shortly after his wife, Annie Vautier, a performance artist he married in 1964, died of a stroke, his children, Eva and Francois, posted on social media. “Unwilling and unable to live without her,” they wrote, “Ben killed himself a few hours later at their home.”Theirs was an intense, if tangled, relationship. “We called her “Sainte-Annie,” Mascha Sosno, a friend, was quoted as saying in a recent article on the France Info website. “They argued all the time, but in fact they adored each other, and he was inseparable from Annie, too.”

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Persons: Ben Vautier, ”, Annie Vautier, Eva, Francois, “, “ Ben, Sainte, Annie, ” Mascha Locations: French, Nice, France