Nicolas Ballet is an associate curator at the Centre Pompidou (Paris) and an art historian who specialises in research into industrial music, experimental art, alternative visual cultures, sound studies and the avant-garde. He received his PhD in 2018 from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he teaches contemporary art history.
He wrote articles in several art journals: Arts, Octopus Notes, Les Cahiers du Mnam, Marges, Optical Sound, and in the Cahiers du CAP and Histo.art published by the Éditions de la Sorbonne. His books include Shock Factory: Culture visuelle des musiques industrielles (1969-1995) (2023), The Last Slogan (2022), co-authored with Jean-Pierre Turmel (Sordide Sentimental), Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Nekrophile (2018), among other texts he has written in books such as Zoe Dewitt’s Nekrophile Rekords (1983-1990): Texts, Documents, Materials (2022), Nigel Ayers’ Electronic Resistance (2021), and Analogue Black Terror: A Visual History of Black Metal (vol. 1, 2019; vol. 2, 2020).
In 2023, he curated the exhibition “Who You Staring At? Visual culture of the no wave scene in the 1970s and 1980s” at the Centre Pompidou. He also curated the exhibitions “AntipsychiARTrie. Des liens entre art et antipsychiatrie de 1960 à nos jours” (INHA, 2019) and “Persuasion: Industrial Music and Mind Control (1975-1995)” (HEAD – Genève, 2015).
