Pierre Klossowski and Jean-Paul Reti / Works

Diane et Actéon, 1990

Pierre klossowski and Jean-Paul Reti

WORKS

Diane et Actéon, 1991-92

John Taylor / Reading Pierre Klossowski

Pierre Klossowski

Reading Pierre Klossowski

by John Taylor

Context N°14

Let’s take Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) at his word, and read him with his favorite word. He claimed to “fabricate simulacra.” What exactly did the French writer mean? The word “simulacrum” is restricted by English usage to “a representation of something (image, effigy),” to “something having the form but not the substance of a material object (imitation, sham),” and to “a superficial likeness (appearance, semblance).” Contemporary French understands the term similarly, while maintaining traces of more concrete Latin meanings: “statue (of a pagan god),” even “phantom.” Interestingly, French adds “a simulated act” to these semantic possibilities, as in Raymond Queneau’s amusing description in Zazie in the Metro: “He took his head in his hands and performed the futile simulacrum (fit le futile simulacre) of tearing it off.” For Roman writers, a simulacrum could also be “a material representation of ideas” (and not just that of a deity), as well as “a moral portrait.”

Pierre Klossowski / Roberte, ce soir

Roberte, ce soir

by Pierre Klossowski

Pierre Klossowski and Has Bellmer

Pierre Klossowski 

and Hans Bellmer

by David Markus

WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, LONDON | SEPTEMBER 20 - NOVEMBER 19, 2006

Pierre Klossowski, “La caverne (Roberte chez les troglodytes) The Cave (Roberte at the Troglodytes Home)” (1975). Colour pencils on paper. Collection Edouard Taÿ-Pamart, Paris.

Pierre Klossowski and Hans Bellmer are two twentieth century figures whose controversial artistic production has limited their acceptance by the general public especially when compared with the international reputations of their immediate contemporaries. Paradoxically, Klossowski (1905-2001) was the consummate “insider.” His brother was the painter Balthus, his early mentors included Rilke and Andre Gide, and his philosophical writings and erotic fiction would eventually influence such intellectual supermen as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, and Jean-Francois Lyotard. However, Klossowski’s unusual sexual predilections and radical individualism have more or less confined him to the realm of esoterica. Bellmer (1902-1975), for his part, operated on the margins of major movements like the New Objectivity and Surrealism. His work was not exhibited in the United States until 1975, and as late as the mid-nineties, prior to the publication of Peter Webb’s definitive exposé, he had yet to receive major notice outside of France and Germany. In the past ten years there has been a surge of interest in both of these artists. Their double billing at Whitechapel Art Gallery this past November—the first major retrospective for either one—presented an incomparable feast for the Sadean imagination.