Le récit
Jean Le Gac
1972
Le récit
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In this minimal and sophisticated artist’s book, Jean Le Gac creates a semi-fictional story (un récit) by binding together reviews and critical texts about his own work. In a gesture of self-vandalism, he deletes his ...
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Le récit
Jean Le Gac
1972
Hamburg: Edition Hossmann
Unpaginated [16 pages]
29 × 19.5 cm
Edition of 500; numbered 347/500

In this minimal and sophisticated artist’s book, Jean Le Gac creates a semi-fictional story (un récit) by binding together reviews and critical texts about his own work. In a gesture of self-vandalism, he deletes his name throughout the texts and replaces it with that of Florent Max. Yet the character is not new to our eyes. One year earlier, in 1971, the artist published a photonovel titled Jean Le Gac/Florent Max, appropriating the character from a novella, “La rumeur dans la montagne”, written by Maurice Renard in 1958.


 


In his brief authorial note, placed on the first page of the book, Jean Le Gac states:


 


“This narrative, patched together like a worn work garment, is made from scraps of paper cut from different newspapers, hence its fragmentary character. The subject who stands apart here is both character and reader: Florent Max (and not myself) holds, as his civil status, this possible entity who identifies himself and comes into existence within the body of this account composed by several authors. I will therefore deliberately skip over the details that belong to me, as well as any qualifiers I recognize as disrupting this process of adherence to a textual image.” (loosely translated from the French)


 


Renard’s story centers on Florent Max, a 45-year-old landscape painter who falls in love with a mysterious murmur on a mountainside that gradually becomes his entire reason for being. Sharing affinities with Frenhofer, Balzac’s protagonist in The Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu), the novella thematizes the elusive nature of creativity.


 


Max becomes an alter ego for Le Gac. In this slightly performative reenactment of the literary character, Le Gac tests, with wit and a subtle taste for iconoclasm, the permeable boundaries between fiction and reality.

Hamburg: Edition Hossmann
Unpaginated [16 pages]
29 × 19.5 cm
Edition of 500; numbered 347/500

In this minimal and sophisticated artist’s book, Jean Le Gac creates a semi-fictional story (un récit) by binding together reviews and critical texts about his own work. In a gesture of self-vandalism, he deletes his name throughout the texts and replaces it with that of Florent Max. Yet the character is not new to our eyes. One year earlier, in 1971, the artist published a photonovel titled Jean Le Gac/Florent Max, appropriating the character from a novella, “La rumeur dans la montagne”, written by Maurice Renard in 1958.

 

In his brief authorial note, placed on the first page of the book, Jean Le Gac states:

 

“This narrative, patched together like a worn work garment, is made from scraps of paper cut from different newspapers, hence its fragmentary character. The subject who stands apart here is both character and reader: Florent Max (and not myself) holds, as his civil status, this possible entity who identifies himself and comes into existence within the body of this account composed by several authors. I will therefore deliberately skip over the details that belong to me, as well as any qualifiers I recognize as disrupting this process of adherence to a textual image.” (loosely translated from the French)

 

Renard’s story centers on Florent Max, a 45-year-old landscape painter who falls in love with a mysterious murmur on a mountainside that gradually becomes his entire reason for being. Sharing affinities with Frenhofer, Balzac’s protagonist in The Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu), the novella thematizes the elusive nature of creativity.

 

Max becomes an alter ego for Le Gac. In this slightly performative reenactment of the literary character, Le Gac tests, with wit and a subtle taste for iconoclasm, the permeable boundaries between fiction and reality.

DESCRIPTION

In this minimal and sophisticated artist’s book, Jean Le Gac creates a semi-fictional story (un récit) by binding together reviews and critical texts about his own work. In a gesture of self-vandalism, he deletes his name throughout the texts and replaces it with that of Florent Max. Yet the character is not new to our eyes. One year earlier, in 1971, the artist published a photonovel titled Jean Le Gac/Florent Max, appropriating the character from a novella, “La rumeur dans la montagne”, written by Maurice Renard in 1958.

 

In his brief authorial note, placed on the first page of the book, Jean Le Gac states:

 

“This narrative, patched together like a worn work garment, is made from scraps of paper cut from different newspapers, hence its fragmentary character. The subject who stands apart here is both character and reader: Florent Max (and not myself) holds, as his civil status, this possible entity who identifies himself and comes into existence within the body of this account composed by several authors. I will therefore deliberately skip over the details that belong to me, as well as any qualifiers I recognize as disrupting this process of adherence to a textual image.” (loosely translated from the French)

 

Renard’s story centers on Florent Max, a 45-year-old landscape painter who falls in love with a mysterious murmur on a mountainside that gradually becomes his entire reason for being. Sharing affinities with Frenhofer, Balzac’s protagonist in The Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu), the novella thematizes the elusive nature of creativity.

 

Max becomes an alter ego for Le Gac. In this slightly performative reenactment of the literary character, Le Gac tests, with wit and a subtle taste for iconoclasm, the permeable boundaries between fiction and reality.

Hamburg: Edition Hossmann
Unpaginated [16 pages]
29 × 19.5 cm
Edition of 500; numbered 347/500

In this minimal and sophisticated artist’s book, Jean Le Gac creates a semi-fictional story (un récit) by binding together reviews and critical texts about his own work. In a gesture of self-vandalism, he deletes his name throughout the texts and replaces it with that of Florent Max. Yet the character is not new to our eyes. One year earlier, in 1971, the artist published a photonovel titled Jean Le Gac/Florent Max, appropriating the character from a novella, “La rumeur dans la montagne”, written by Maurice Renard in 1958.

 

In his brief authorial note, placed on the first page of the book, Jean Le Gac states:

 

“This narrative, patched together like a worn work garment, is made from scraps of paper cut from different newspapers, hence its fragmentary character. The subject who stands apart here is both character and reader: Florent Max (and not myself) holds, as his civil status, this possible entity who identifies himself and comes into existence within the body of this account composed by several authors. I will therefore deliberately skip over the details that belong to me, as well as any qualifiers I recognize as disrupting this process of adherence to a textual image.” (loosely translated from the French)

 

Renard’s story centers on Florent Max, a 45-year-old landscape painter who falls in love with a mysterious murmur on a mountainside that gradually becomes his entire reason for being. Sharing affinities with Frenhofer, Balzac’s protagonist in The Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu), the novella thematizes the elusive nature of creativity.

 

Max becomes an alter ego for Le Gac. In this slightly performative reenactment of the literary character, Le Gac tests, with wit and a subtle taste for iconoclasm, the permeable boundaries between fiction and reality.

MORE BOOKS

In this minimal and sophisticated artist’s book, Jean Le Gac creates a semi-fictional story (un récit) by binding together reviews and critical texts about his own work. In a gesture of self-vandalism, he deletes his name throughout the texts and replaces it with that of Florent Max. Yet the character is not new to our eyes. One year earlier, in 1971, the artist published a photonovel titled Jean Le Gac/Florent Max, appropriating the character from a novella, “La rumeur dans la montagne”, written by Maurice Renard in 1958.

 

In his brief authorial note, placed on the first page of the book, Jean Le Gac states:

 

“This narrative, patched together like a worn work garment, is made from scraps of paper cut from different newspapers, hence its fragmentary character. The subject who stands apart here is both character and reader: Florent Max (and not myself) holds, as his civil status, this possible entity who identifies himself and comes into existence within the body of this account composed by several authors. I will therefore deliberately skip over the details that belong to me, as well as any qualifiers I recognize as disrupting this process of adherence to a textual image.” (loosely translated from the French)

 

Renard’s story centers on Florent Max, a 45-year-old landscape painter who falls in love with a mysterious murmur on a mountainside that gradually becomes his entire reason for being. Sharing affinities with Frenhofer, Balzac’s protagonist in The Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu), the novella thematizes the elusive nature of creativity.

 

Max becomes an alter ego for Le Gac. In this slightly performative reenactment of the literary character, Le Gac tests, with wit and a subtle taste for iconoclasm, the permeable boundaries between fiction and reality.

MORE BOOKS