The masking of people during the pandemic offers us insights into a changed aesthetic of the face in concealment: A boy pantomimes these Covid years of 2020 and 2021 for us as he sits alone in a delivery van, amusing the protagonists in their café with a solo of grimaces into his mobile phone camera and (for us, inaudible) words, frowning, squinting, and other exaggerated facial expressions. In a world of protected faces, this is a powerful source of unease.
La fiction étrange qu'il crée sous nous yeux et dans laquelle il nous entraîne, contraste incroyablement avec all ces visages masqués qui passent dans la rue et dont on ne sait pas s'ils s'ignorent et quelle histoire ils portent en eux.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
The strange fiction he creates before our eyes and into which he draws us stands in incredible contrast to all the masked faces passing by on the street, and we don't know if they are unaware of their masks or what story they carry within them.
The different masks are subtly intertwined in Particular dayIn her research on the world-famous photographer Richard Avedon, Célia Houdart cites the much-printed Porträt by Andy Warhol with a wig as a morbid imprint of a disembodied artist. Because Warhol “loved duplication and depersonalization,” and Avedon’s cover image for Selfish Andy Warhol's work was similarly mask-like. 1
In 1986, for a new series of autoportraits (which is the result of the dernière), Andy Warhol, don't leave the visage, separate the body, ressemble with a mortuary mask, porte a perruque argentée aux cheveux ébouriffés, surnommée fright wig, généralement traduit en français par “perruque panic”.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
In 1986, Andy Warhol, whose face, severed from his body, resembled a death mask, wore a silver wig with standing on end for his new series of self-portraits (which would indeed be his last), earning him the nickname fright wig wore, translated into French as "panic wig".
The pandemic also leads us to a mutual double portrait of two photographers who created the book Particular day Yes, it motivates. Because the sheer proximity of two couples in the pictures triggers the narrator's impulse to think about social distancing due to Covid:
Je regarde les deux photographs sur ma table. These hommes and ces women qui posent tout près les us des otheres. The proximity contributes greatly to the beauty of these portraits. Je pense à la distance de sécurité maintenant préconisée entre les corps.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
I look at the two photos on my table. These men and women are posing close together. The proximity contributes significantly to the beauty of these portraits. I think about the safe distance that is now recommended between bodies.
Alain, the photographer friend, reveals primarily a close-up view of the eyeball because of the mask on his face, and Houdart points out: What makes us see, we cannot see.
Alain wears a mask. Je regarde ses yeux. The black disk of the pupil. The iris marron légèrement cerclé de gris. When you arrive at the crystal, you can see the corps in front of you without seeing anything.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
Alain is wearing a mask. I look into his eyes. The black disc of his pupil. The brown iris, slightly outlined in gray. On the back of the lens is the vitreous humor, which we cannot see, but without which we cannot see anything.
In Villa Crimée The author had once again taken up the story, fascinating to many literary figures, of a miner who, preserved in death, came to light again after decades and was recognized only by his former bride, who had since grown old. 3 Houdart did not perceive this intact body as morbid, but rather as "a fantastic apparition, a kind of Sleeping Beauty in male form, a glittering presence, and an image of eternity that was a little uncanny." 4
Houdart's reflections on what photographic portraiture has to do with the photographer's own self begin as early as her debut. Les Merveilles du monde from 2007 vividly illustrated as a self-interview:
– J'aimerais faire un portrait de toi.
Il lui parlait avec cette voix calme, professionnelle, légèrement directive, the débit de la phrase calqué sur le rythme des gestes bientôt ponctué par le bruit mat du déclencheur.
– Là, c'est très bien, ne bouge pas. Voila. Parfaits.
Martin takes a court moment before his son is reflected in the object. Il comprit que ce qu'il voyait, grossi à la loupe et d'aspect quelque peu monstrueux, c'était en réalité l'œil (cils, iris, pupille, blanc marbré de veinules) d'Igor.
Célia Houdart, Les Merveilles du monde
– I would like to take a portrait of you.
He spoke to him in that calm, professional, slightly commanding voice; the flow of the sentence followed the rhythm of his gestures and was soon interrupted by the dull sound of the trigger.
– Okay, that's good, don't move. That's it. Perfect.
For a brief moment, Martin thought he saw his own reflection in the lens. He realized that what he saw magnified with the magnifying glass, and which looked somewhat monstrous, was in fact Igor's eye (eyelashes, iris, pupil, white marbled with veins).
Célia Houdart None of her books have yet been translated into German. She worked for a considerable time as a director and, in addition to novels, also wrote plays. Her interest lies in framing, detail, and lighting, as do other photographic writers such as Hervé Guibert, Claude Simon, Nicolas Bouvier, Alix Cléo Roubaud, and Gérard Macé, whom she herself mentions in an interview. Diacriticism Summarizing Houdart's novels doesn't get us much further; the great fascination of her texts doesn't primarily lie in the plot.
- Les Merveilles du monde, Short novel, 2007, 112 pages, the photographer Igor meets a woman, a long-distance love,
- The boss, Short novel, 2009, 128 pp., Bilal, son of Algerian immigrants, leaves his family, a Parisian doctor takes care of him,
- Carrara, Short novel, 2011, 144 pp., a collection of observations and stories, using the Italian town of Carrara and its marble as a theme,
- Gil, Roman, 2015, 240 pp., a young pianist develops into a singer,
- Tout un monde lointain, Roman, 2017, 208 pp., the older Gréco encounters two young dancers who have taken over a villa,
- Villa Crimée, 2018, 96 pp., 212 fragments, each corresponding to the window of the same building, a technique similar to Emile Zola with Pot-Bouille, Michel Butor with Passage de Milan and Georges Perec with La Vie mode d'emploi,
- Le Scribe, Roman, 2020, 208 pp., the Indian mathematician Chandra tries to help his family in Calcutta from Paris,
- Particular day, récit, 2021, 112 pp.
Um Particular day This is the main focus here. The list of literary references at the end of the book is, of course, somewhat of a contradiction to a wordless world of images, because Houdart lists not only literary works but also the film about photography. Blow Up, by Michelangelo Antonioni, 5 including the psychedelic film adventure Barbarella by Roger Vadim, and also the film of the same title A particular day by Ettore Scola, an intense encounter between two lonely people: the family mother Antonietta and the homosexual intellectual Gabriele in fascist Italy.
C'est considérable tout ce qui a change en photographie with le raccourcissement du temps de pose, c'est-à-dire avec l'instantané qui permet le regard furtif et l'anonymat.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
It is remarkable how everything in photography has changed with the reduction of exposure time, i.e., with the snapshot, which allows for the fleeting glimpse and anonymity.
Houdart reflects on the aesthetic approaches to the world that photography has made possible. A fleeting glimpse, perhaps corresponding to the brief scenes in her writing. Working on these images in an ambivalence of reversal, as she explains in a conversation with Johan Faerber:
Je trouve beau, à l'heure où sont omniprésentes les enquêtes d'opinions, la pensée statistique, de scruter des visages. (…) L'acharnement sur des images ou sur des êtres qui sont devenus presque des images, cela m'a toujours troublée, intrigue. The naissance of premiers portraits religious or laïcs ensemble avoir immédiatement inspired the desir of all destruction. The reversibility or reversal is a motif that remains present in my book. Creation of images, les abimer or les detruire. Fixer un visage et souffrir de prosopagnosie (l'oubli des visages). Photographier, être photographié. Écrire, être travaillée par l'écriture.
Célia Houdart in an interview with Johan Faerber, October 12, 2021, Diacriticism
I find it beautiful, in a time when opinion polls and statistical thinking are ubiquitous, to scrutinize faces. (...) I have always been disturbed and fascinated by the relentlessness of images, or of people who have almost become images. The creation of the first religious or secular portraits seems to have immediately awakened the desire to destroy them. Reversibility, or inversion, is a motif that also appears in my book. Creating images, damaging or destroying them. Staring at a face and suffering from prosopagnosia (face blindness). Photographing, being photographed. Writing, being shaped by writing.
Another film by Ettore Scola plays a role in the present “récit” by Houdart: Bal, a music and dance film in which there is no dialogue, a pantomime theatrical journey with the same performers through the eventful history.
So a net has been cast, besides the friend André Engel, who is involved in the film Bal was involved, but also alongside theatre by Olivier Py, Samuel Beckett, Molière and Corneille, Andy Warhol is repeatedly mentioned, first and foremost of course as a friend Alain Fonterey, the photographer, to whom the book is also dedicated, and the chance encounter with his role model Richard Avedon, from which (unbeknownst to them) mutual double portraits emerged. Houdart's dialectical concept of the image addresses the oppositions of identity/alterity and subject/object of the image: “I'll Be Your MirrorI thought I was looking at someone else. I couldn't even see my own reflection in the multi-sided mirror. 6 Alain's request to the author to address this special day is the driving force behind this book, which further intensifies this dialectic:
The book is a reconstitution, a suite of zooms and panoramic views, and a montage. A little later Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni. Sauf qu'ici il n'y a, heureusement, also meurtre.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
This book is a reconstruction, a series of zooms and pans, a montage. A bit like in Michelangelo Antonioni's work. Blow Up. Except that, thankfully, there's no murder here.
The great relevance of this chance day, on which Houdart's friend and neighbor Alain Forteray gets a double portrait with his revered Richard Avedon (the two pictures are printed at the end of the book), corresponds to an unconditional gift, but in its doubling to a ritual exchange:
Prendre en photo quelqu'un en lei empruntant son appareil, alors que vous êtes comme on dit a grand nom de la photographie, en sachant du même coup que la photo ne vous reviendra pas, est une forme de don. An acte de générosité, which is transformed en rituel d'échange. En reciprocité.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
To photograph someone by borrowing their camera, even if you're a self-proclaimed big name in photography, knowing you won't get the picture back, is a form of gift. An act of generosity that here becomes a ritual of exchange. On a reciprocal basis.
Richard Avedon (1923–2004) was one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, his Work It includes not only portraits of great artists, but also photographs from people's everyday lives. Images are exchange, a gift, but, as Houdart quotes Roland Barthes' photographic theory in La Chambre claire , that too Period, a kind of punctuation of the body in chance that grips me.
We are already familiar with such scenes from earlier works by Houdart, for example when the narrator in Villa Crimée Considering the captured gesture in such a snapshot:
A photograph of the chanter with an ouvrier, cheveux blancs et mustache en brosse, with a beautiful visage and little carré. Solid. Surprise in the application of a gesture. Il se tient droit, les bras pliés et les mains légèrement en avant. The porte un casque et une veste de chantier bleus, des gants jaunes en cuir épais. The focus is on a piece of wood that is adjusted to complete, on a façade, and habillage de laine de roche. Au-dessus de lui, le sol ajouré de l'échafaudage laisse filtrer le soleil.
Célia Houdart, Villa Crimée
A photograph from a construction site shows a worker with white hair and a mustache, a handsome, somewhat angular face. Solid. He appears surprised as he makes a gesture. He stands upright, arms bent, hands slightly extended forward. He wears a hard hat and a blue jacket, along with thick yellow leather gloves. He is working on a piece of wood, preparing it for the installation of rock wool insulation on a facade. Above him, sunlight filters through the openwork scaffolding.
One of the famous Portraits Richard Avedon's painting, which depicts a hairless, bare-chested man covered in bees, is brought back from stillness in Houdart's narration; like a living picture, it regains context, sound, and production process:
I can see this image of a picture of the torso and the visage of the abeilles, without savoir qu'il s'agissait d'une photographie de Richard Avedon. A cliché pris for an assistant in watching the making of. Avedon coiffé d'un cow-boy hat, the mains ouvertes places de part et d'autre du visage du young homme. The position is unique and verifies the size of the cadrage. Le tout très tranquillement, tandis que bourdonne l'essaim d'abeilles.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
I was familiar with this image of a beekeeper whose chest and face are covered in bees, without knowing it was a photograph by Richard Avedon. A shot taken by an assistant shows the creation of the image. Avedon is wearing a cowboy hat and has his hands open to the sides of the young man's face. He is indicating a position and checking the width of the frame. All very quietly, while the swarm of bees buzzes.
But the task of Houdart's literature in a post-language age, a post-image age, is not to bring photography to life, but rather what Alain's aesthetic of soft focus This is what constitutes a blurriness that irritates perception and enables a special kind of seeing. Even Alain's memories remain blurry, but this is precisely what characterizes his ability to... To capture moods, gestures, appearances:
The cultivation of the flou qui fait voir, the flou qui parle. Au theater comme dans la vie. Dans ses propos comme dans ses photos. A bougé imperceptible. The perturbation in the mode of perception.
Célia Houdart, Particular day
He cultivates the blurred, the blurred, that allows you to see, a blurriness that speaks volumes. In the theater as in life. In his statements as in his photographs. An imperceptible movement. Disruption as a mode of perception.
This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Notes- “Warhol aimed at démultiplication and dépersonalization, laissant his assistants sérigraphier his œuvres à sa place, and demandant à René Ricard de jouer son propre rôle dans The Andy Warhol Story. Quand on regarde son portrait par Richard Avedon, celui qui fait la couverture d'Selfish, on est saisi par ce corps et ce visage. Portrait terrible, d'une formidable intensity. On se dit qu'il ne s'agit là ni d'un double ni d'un masque." Celia Houdart, Particular day.>>>
- “Un miroir qui réfléchit un mur qui réfléchit un bardage de cuivre qui réfléchit le ciel.” Celia Houdart, Villa Crimée.>>>
- The play in question is probably not Hofmannsthal's drama, but rather E.T.A. Hoffmann's. The mines of Falun or Johann Peter Hebel's Unverhofftes Wiedersehen.>>>
- “… an apparition fantastique, a variety of Belle au bois dormant au masculin, a presence scintillante, en même temps qu'une image de l'éternité, qui faisait juste un peu peur.”>>>
- In an interview with Johan Faerber, Houdart explains: “Dans Blow Up It's all about the geste d'agrandir, de scruter des détails ou des zones mal définies pour accéder à une vérité." – “In Blow Up There is, of course, the gesture of magnification, of questioning details or blurred areas in order to find a truth.” Diacriticism.>>>
- "I'll Be Your Mirror. Je croyais regarder un other. Je ne voyais même pas, dans this ice cream à plusieurs faces, mon propre reflet.”>>>
