Dhalgren Gallery

Something unfurls itself, unravelling and unconscious of its significance. Ours is the task of understanding, of grasping the meaning. Perhaps the latter is the virtual thread itself, in other words, Duchamp's "ultra thin" (ultra mince) stretching and extending, disappearing and being reborn from one word to the next, in the gap between drawing and writing. We are shown something which is being rolled out before us, not just the thread of an anecdote, but the pleasure of its being inscribed on a screen, for its authors as much as for me, its first reader. It moves forward like views from a plane, a train, a car, of the route being taken, identifying the space covered, to be covered. Our vision corresponds simply to the upper view, while below the writing takes its course quite simply, or rather, with simplicity. The problem of this departure from the norm of the artist's books (published here by "le mot et le reste" - words and the rest) is, you've guessed it, the problem of the screen, turning a page into a page, pages into pages. After all, layout is an age old preoccupation for the writer, as it is, of course, for the visual artist. Here, a single line is occurring, a thread, a wire, a flow of words, one by one, letter by letter, mapping the path. It goes without saying that making use of volumes, the volumen, the roller, the printer's block and codex is ventilated here, in its virtual dimension, while nevertheless travelling from transmitter to receiver. a route draws itself out, somehow following the whims of my gaze, This is no border, but an elegant and narrow demarcation line; never wholly fixed, even when punctuating a reading, shown to be just like the vibratory process of Stéphane Mallarmé's idea: "As for the book" (quant au livre). We want there to be no end to this. Something goes by, a moment, the object of a transformation, an action, the minimal act of every book in Yves Jolivet's collection. As far as I'm concerned, I'll position myself here or there, preparing the first parabola which will announce the event. There's no trick in these writings, tracing a suitable passage along the ridge between the heavens and the earth. The landscape of the artist's book is laid down and discussed at the same time, everything and everything else, a speculation vision worthy of rebirth, or of the ash grey, black and white of the book-object we have to deal with. We should follow François Bazzoli and Yves Jolivet along their pathway signifying festivity, the land of lines to come, laid out like a survivor's plan - which must be of interest to the draughtsman, from his vantage point, as from those of the scribe and reader respectively. The screen is there, vertically placed, waiting to be seen and be read.
- Frédéric Appy

Works by

• Yves Jolivet