Fragments pour Isidore Isou

Collective study bringing together the proceedings of two study days organized at ENSA Limoges on the founder of lettrism, Isidore Isou. It offers a series of texts by specialists aiming to place the man and his vision in History as well as to examine the contemporaneity of the notions and creations inherited from the lettrists and from the work of Isou.

What remains today of Isidore Isou (1925-2007) ? A name in the rumor of the history of art, and that of the movement of which he was the founder in 1946 : lettrism. A manifesto film with images disconnected from the soundtrack and scraped : Treatise on slime and eternity (1951). A strange vocabulary, which exposes him to a possible hermeticism. A bad reputation, contention and pretentiousness. This book offers a closer look. Without claiming to be exhaustive in the face of a vast and complex work, it examines some decisive notions and inventions (letter poetry, metagraphy, hypergraphy, infinitesimal art, super-temporal art, etc.), evokes contexts and sources, traces some parallels and perspectives, to try to restore in its own coherence and in its place in History, a singular vision of man and creation.

What is it to be contemporary ? To be out of phase with the given of the present ; knowing that it is constructed, in other words deconstructible and reconstructible : reclaiming it as History. At the crossroads of art and politics, the collection " Perspectives inactuelles " proposes by precise historical and philosophical resumptions to contribute to it.

Edited by Francois Coadou.
Texts by Frédéric Alix, Philippe Blanchon, François Coadou, Cristina De Simone, Fabrice Flahutez, Corinne Melin, Vanessa Theodoropoulou.