Jean-Marc Bustamante, born in 1952, started with studies in Economics and in photography from 1973 to 1975. He then worked for Connaissance des Arts magazine as a photographer, and also with the film maker and photographer William Klein (1978-1981). From 1978, he takes large coloured pictures he calls ‘paintings’. It was the landscapes of the Barcelona surburbs that established his reputation. These ‘paintings’ are considered as the first significant photographic works in the field of contemporary art.
Since the 1980's he has developed his practice through a constant exchange between sculpture, painting and photography. In 1983 he met the sculptor Bernard Bazile. For the next three years , they have worked under the name of Bazile Bustamante. Together, they raised the question of the object, beyond categories. Following  this experience, Bustamante works in a free, open way, creating a strange world closely connected to space. From photography that remains the core of his practice, he sets up new visual effects, perfectly mastered. Recently, he started using Plexiglass, and seems more and more interested in colour. He was the french representant at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1994, and at the Venice Biennale in 2003.
In 2006, he exhibited at Bregenz Museum and, with Ed Ruscha, at the musée d’Art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg. He has been part of the VIII, IX and X Documenta in Kassel. He taught at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris for several years, and he is now the Director of the school.