To accompany the exhibition »Pierre Guyotat – Figures and Other Voices«

 

Tri-lingual readings from the work of Pierre Guyotat:

 

Pierre Guyotat (French)

Natascha Bub (German)

Peter Behrman de Sinety (English)

 

Conversation

 

Pierre Guyotat in conversation with Maximilian Gilleßen (French/English)

 

The exhibition is a part of the series »Pluralizing the Singular«

 

For almost fifty years now Guyotat has been considered one of the most significant avant-gardists and innovators in the French language. Writing, painting, drawing in close touch with music and literature since his early youth, he published his first book in 1961, Sur un cheval. In the same year, called up to the war in Algeria, he was imprisoned for incitement to desertion and the distribution of forbidden literature. With Tombeau pour cinq cent mille soldats (1967) and Eden, Eden, Eden (1970) he gained wide attention and provoked a sharp controversy including censorship. His radical writing was interrupted when his increasingly severe physical and mental exhaustion culminated, in late 1981, in a coma. In 2006 he published Coma, which reflects his psychiatric crisis and reached a wide audience. His numerous publications show Guyotat's stylistic diversity as well as his permanent altercation with literature.