MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ ‘TO STAY ALIVE’ IN PALAIS DE TOKYO

Michel Houellebecq ‘Rester vivant’ in: Le Palais de Tokyo Paris

This is not a show “about” Michel Houellebecq, but a show “by” Michel Houellebecq, demonstrating how the writer has produced a form that contributes to the reinvention of exhibitions, by mixing up literature and photography, between fact and fiction

Poet, essayist, novelist and filmmaker, Michel Houellebecq has always had close ties with the cinema and the world of the visual arts, which have accompanied and extended his reflexions since the start of his career, as the frequent allusions to them in his novels attest.

This show is a scenario, leading visitors through the writer’s obsessions. Made up of sounds, photographs, installations and films he has conceived, as well as the presence of several guest artists (Robert Combas, Raphaël Sohier, Renaud Marchand and Maurice Renoma) it will offer an immersion into the world and mind of the protean creator who is Michel Houellebecq.
Curator : Jean de Loisy

An issue of the magazine PALAIS is entirely dedicated to the exhibition. Copublished with Flammarion.
An associated program will propose extensions to the exhibitions.
Exhibition From 23/06/2016 to 11/09/2016

Open every day except Tuesdays, from noon until midnight

Michel Houellebecq

Michel Houellebecq is, since the 1990s, one of the contemporary authors of French language the most translated and read in the world.

“Michel Thomas was born on the French island Réunion in 1958, his mother was a doctor and his father a mountain guide. His early years were marked by frequent moves (Savoy, Algeria, back to Réunion). His life gained a certain stability after his parents’ divorce, when, at the age of six, he went to live with his paternal grandmother (whose maiden name, Houellebecq, he adopted as his penname).

His childhood was spent in Dicy, in the Yonne. Then his teenage years in Villiers-sur-Morin, in Seine-et-Marne.

After a high-school diploma, which he passed at the age of seventeen, he continued his education in Paris where, five years later, he qualified as an agronomist (specialising in vegetal ecology).

There then followed periods of unemployment intercut with periods of work (firstly to do with agronomics; then mostly for IT service providers).

1991 saw him publish his first book, as well become an administrative secretary at the Assemblée Nationale.

There, he had a brief career in the IT department. In 1996 he took unpaid leave for personal reasons, before resigning in 2008.”

Magazine PALAIS #23

PALAIS magazine is dedicating its issue 23 to Michel Houellebecq’s exhibition “Rester vivant”, presented at the Palais de Tokyo from 23 June to 12 September 2016. This is an exceptional event, because it is the first large-scale show devoted to Michel Houellebecq as an artist. This is also a special issue of PALAIS magazine with Michel Houellebecq as guest editor-in-chief.

This issue of PALAIS magazine follows the organisation of the exhibition in chapters. Thanks to a series of unpublished interviews with Michel Houellebecq, a selection of his writings (essays, poems, novel extracts) and texts by guest authors, the issue provides a discovery of his visual universe, and its intertwining with the many creative forms which the writer uses (music, cinema, performance…).

Contents of this issue: photographs and a selection of texts by Michel Houellebecq as well as a series of interviews between Michel Houellebecq and Jean de Loisy, Yan Céh, Robert Combas (edited by Richard Leydier), Benoît Delépine, Nelly Kaprièlian, an essay by Stéphanie Moisdon and portfolios by Robert Combas, Marie-Pierre Gauthier and Renaud Marchand.

This issue of PALAIS magazine has been co-published with Flammarion.

About Michel Houellebecq’s exhibition “Rester vivant”
Bilingual (French & English)
192 pages in color;
Format : 285 x 225 mm
ISSN 1 951-672X
ISBN 978-2-84711-061-6
15 € (FRANCE)

Palais de Tokyo
13 Avenue du Président Wilson,
75116 Paris, France

# More info on website Palais de Tokyo

fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: - Book News, FDM in Paris, Histoire de France, Michel Houellebecq, Photography