Somewhere over the wet dreams
Michel Houellebecq in Palais de Tokyo
Michel Houellebecq – the notorious and quaint contemporary French writer came across an opportunity to arrange, and as well to be himself the main subject of an exhibition in one of the most challenging contemporary art institution – Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
The exhibition entitled Rester vivant (that could be translated as staying alive) is a very consequent expression of Houellebecq’s style or rather said ‘aura’ that evaporates from most of his books and is highly perceptible, for instance, in the film in which he was fictionally portrayed – The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (L'enlèvement de Michel Houellebecq, directed by Guillaume Nicloux).
Everywhere, where the author of The Map and Territory appears, facts are chased by the witty fiction, the exposure of the self is both supported by honest facts and ironic exaggeration.
It starts with simple pictures, taken mostly somewhere, presumably in the suburbs of Paris – the landscapes of inhabited urban areas caught in their most absurd forms and contexts. They expose the silliness of our surroundings, the poverty of thought that leads into the part of exposition marking the ego of the author. Houellebecq with his disturbing blend of serene and bitter attitude improvises his post mortal memorial. The image depicting a phallic-shaped tree root is the background to an epitaph that was constructed with the empty Coca-Cola cans inside of which a human scull was housed. There, in this bizarrely nearly Latin American folk “monument” author estimated date of his death – in the year 2037.
But the exhibitionism of the ego follows - from original writer’s MRI to the space entirely dedicated to the process of creativity. It is being announced by a short video in which we can see Polish actor Andrzej Seweryn trying to make order in the mess of cables plugged in the machine of not obvious purpose (I suppose it may be an extract of the full film La Possibilité d’une île (2008) directed by Houellebecq himself, based on the book bearing the same tittle). The tense and serious visage stands out over the nearly mythically unsolvable riddle. In the following part of the exhibituon we can see the obvious, if not banal set of the attributes of the writer: pen and notebook proudly hanged in a glass case.
Overpowering irony mixes with the genuine beauty and curiosity. The need of distance and broader spectrum of things was marked by series of pictures showing alternately the micro and macro images of the life on Earth. This nearly sublime touch cannot last long, as after the viewers are stepping into a truly kitschy holiday-postcards paradise. On the floor there were put magnified souvenirs from nearly every touristic destination in the French Republic.
When you think the witty and profoundly human attitude of the writer couldn’t be exposed more, you step into the smoking area, arranged in a scenography reminding of a rather sloppy bar. The idealized and metaphorical qualities begin to change to be hyperrealistic or rather said meta-realistic (we are still in the head of Houellebecq!). It turns that the author of Submission does enjoy painting. His colourful canvas are being hanged next to unusual set of crucifixes constructed with used paintbrushes. The unalterable ironic sense of things is not entirely constant. The most charming part of the exhibition was dedicated to the passed away Houellebecq’s dog. Writer collected a great range of souvenirs connected with his pet. It’s a most charming, sometimes enchantingly naïve chapter of the story. Somehow, it is also the most realistic, biographical part of this creatively designed exposition. After this confession writer invites everyone to witness the world of his ‘dirty secrets’, erotic phantasms and pornographic obsessions.
All in all we don’t know (fortunately), how much we have been played with. But who cares, the adventure is too alluring, and the stories spin around, pulling all the triggers.
Michel Houellebecq, Rester vivant, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
