Poetry in Painting
Writings on Contemporary Arts and Aesthetics
Hélène Cixous
Edited by Marta Segarra, Joana Masó
The first book by Hélène Cixous on painting and the contemporary arts
- Combines poetic, theoretical and critical writing and Cixous' unique methodology
- Addresses an important collection of contemporary artists, including Americans Nancy Spero and Roni Horn, the London artist Maria Chevska, the Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson, the filmmaker Ruth Bekermann, the French choreographer Karine Saporta and the French fashion designer Sonia Rykiel
- Treats a range of media and genre: photography, painting, installations, film, choreography, fashion design
This collection gathers most of Hélène Cixous' texts devoted to contemporary artists, such as the painter Nancy Spero, the photographer Andres Serrano, the visual artist Roni Horn, the fashion designer Sonia Rykiel and the choreographer Karine Saporta, among others. The artworks belong to different genres and media - photography, painting, installations, film, choreography and fashion design - while the commentaries all deal with some of Hélène Cixous' privileged themes: exile, war, violence (against women) and exclusion, as well as love, memory, beauty and tenderness.
Neither art criticism nor a collection of critical essays, Hélène Cixous responds to these artworks as a poet, reading them as if they were poems. Written between 1985 and 2010, most of these essays are unpublished in English, or published only in rare catalogues or art books.
"Hélène Cixous, in Art as in Dreams", Joana Masó and Marta Segarra
1. "Paintings"
2. "Spero's Dissidances"
3. "Ernest's Imagic"
4. "See the Neverbeforeseen"
5. "Portraits of Portraits. The Very Day/Light of Roni Horn"
6. "K-A Notebook"
7. "Shit, No Present: Faecetious Serrrano"
8. "Inheriting/Inventing with Jeffrey Gibson"
9. "Filming the Invisible Becoming"
10. "Sonia Rykiel in Translation"
11. "The Train Stop, or Anna's Resurrections".
An important collection of essays on art by one of France's leading writers and literary figures.
It will likely surprise and delight English readers to realize the extent of Cixous' engagement with contemporary arts, in particular painting, photography and film, one that has been frequent, sustained and especially intense over the last few years.
