Michel Houellebecq, Photographic Landing
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In addition to writing, Michel Houellebecq has also been busy of late making films ( La Possibilité d’une île is his first feature film, made in 2008), acting (in 2014, L’Enlèvement de Michel Houellebecq by Guillaume Nicloux and Near Death Experience by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern), and now as a photographer, with Before Landing at the Pavillon Carré de Baudouin (November 12, 2014–January 31, 2015). Curated by photographer Marc Lathuillière, whose own work explores the museumification of France, this exhibition is also a dialogue exploring the French heritage and its tourist territory. Houellebecq’s photographs were first exhibited at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France as part of artpress’s fortieth birthday bash. Finally, as for the day job, Houellebecq’s next novel is due out this January. “It goes back a long way, the photography,” Houellebecq told me during our interview, which was more a survey of his artistic work generally than a commentary on his exhibition. His photography cannot be understood apart from the writing. “I always take photos when I’m writing, I stick the images onawall and I look at them. But the text I produce is generally very different.” The exhibition affords access to the process of writing itself. Mural sequences are edited like sequences of a film or landscapes; documentary views and text collapse into each other. “Before, I never thought that an exhibition could be a form. I wanted to create distinct spaces, like little blocks of narrative, because I have long had this obsession with connecting texts and images.” The exhibition can therefore be seen as a literary installation or a book in the process of being composed. On one of the walls, a fragment of text, accompanied by picturesque landscapes, is within view of more humorous photos of the Camembert Museum. “I stopped at the Relais des Mille Étangs, just by the Châteauroux exit and I bought a double-chocolate cookie and a large coffee at La Croissanterie, then I got back behind the