To Write or To Paint the Monstrous? —The Strange Case of Claude Louis-Combet

Abstract

This essay proposes both ekphrasis and critical reflection on the art of writing and painting in Dado and Claude Louis-Combet, as well as on their singular symbiotic relationship. Rather than taking a single theoretical approach, the author gestures towards a number of critical perspectives, including Derrida’s thinking on monstrosity (“The monster is also that which appears for the first time and, consequently, is not yet recognized” [Points 386]) and hybridization along the lines of Deleuze’s concept of devenir-imaginaire. At the heart of this inquiry are two bodies of work, two means of expression that, since 1987, the date of Vacuoles, Dado-Combet’s first collaboration, have melted into one another, influencing each other in an unnerving cohesion.

To explore this cohesion between the two artists through a close analysis of texts, the author explores: (1) Dado’s bloody blockhouse paintings as seen by Combet, (2) the fascinating correspondence between Dado’s junkyard sculptures and Louis-Combet’s linguistic distortions, (3) the “dadomorphs,” a creation of monsters that remain nameless, and (4) the birds painted by Dado on Irène Némirovsky’s manuscripts.

Keywords:

• Claude Louis-Combet
• Dado
• alterity
• monstrosity
• Irène Némirowsky
• blockhouse

Notes

Notes

1 It should be noted that Claude Louis-Combet has a long history of writing about and/or collaborating with numerous visual artists, including David Nebreda, Felix de Recondo, Cécile Reims, and Bérénice Constans, but, as I will argue, Louis-Combet’s collaboration with Dado remains exceptional both in terms of duration (more than twenty-three years) and volume (five co-authored books).

2 See, for example: Durrande, José-Laure. Claude Louis-Combet. L’Œuvre de chair. Lille, PU du Septentrion, coll. “Objet,” 1996; Houriez, Jacques. Claude Louis-Combet, Mythe, sainteté, écriture. Paris, José Corti, 2000; Bonnefis, Philippe. Claude Louis-Combet, d’un trait d’union. Paris, Galilée, 2012; Romestaing, Alain, “Miroir de Léda de Claude Louis-Combet: Usages mythobiographiques de l’animalité.” Chances du roman charmes du mythe, edited by Marie-Hélène Boblet, Paris, P Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2013; or Martin, Hervé. “Le Roman de Mélusine de Claude Louis-Combet ou le roman de l’œil miroitant.” Tangence, vol. 110, 2016, pp. 127–139.

3 See David Houston Jones, “Sex, Sainthood and the Other Body: Writing Icons in Claude Louis-Combet and David Nebreda” (French Cultural Studies, 2003); Boulard, Stéphanie. “Dadomorphoses.” Visions, visitation, passions: En compagnie de Claude Louis-Combet, edited by Stéphanie Boulard, Paris, Corlevour, 2008, pp. 70–91; Marchal-Ninosque, France. “Claude Louis-Combet devant l’art contemporain: Les Charmes de l’horreur.” L’Expérience de la beauté: Mélanges en hommage à Lise Sabourin, edited by Florence Fix, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2016, pp. 83–92.

4 There is of course, a connection to World War II and to the war in Yugoslavia here, which should be discussed in a separate study.

5 As of yet, none of Claude Louis-Combet’s works have been translated into English. All translations in the present paper are my own.

6 See also, for example: Le Chef de Saint-Denis. Paris, Ulysse Fin de Siècle, 1992.

7 The wound or blessure is central to Claude Louis-Combet’s œuvre. For a more complete treatment of the wound in Louis-Combet, see: Boulard, Stéphanie. “Déchirer, mordre, écrire: Claude Louis-Combet à l’œuvre.” Fluence et Influence: Claude Louis-Combet, edited by France Marchal-Ninosque and Jacques Poirier, Besançon, PU de Franche-Comté, 2012, pp. 251–259; David Houston Jones, “Sex, Sainthood and the Other Body” (French Cultural Studies, 2003); or José-Laure Durrande, Claude Louis-Combet. L’Œuvre de chair (PU du Septentrion, 1996).

8 “Puketorium,” to be precise.

9 Louis-Combet’s neologism “dégueuloir” refers here to Flaubert’s fascination with style and his constant search for “le mot juste,” subjecting the text to “l’épreuve du gueuloir” (a word coined from “la gueule” and “gueuler”), stemming from the conviction that meaning can be cornered by the right word.

10 “On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting,” said Jackson Pollock (65).

11 See David Houston Jones, “Sex, Sainthood and the Other Body,” p. 179.

12 Annette Messager’s pensioners could be seen at her solo exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2007. In La Promenade des pensionnaires and in La Punition des pensionnaires, she exposed dead birds that she had gathered and swaddled in knitted garments. For Messager, these birds not only symbolize death but also love and transcendence, both the sacred and the profane.

13 The copy of the manuscript Dado chose to paint on is Suite Française, written from 1940 to 1942, and which was only published in 2004, more than sixty years after Némirowsky died at Auschwitz. Birds are a leitmotif in her last novel.

Additional information

Notes on contributor

Stéphanie Boulard is Associate Professor of French at Georgia Institute of Technology and has authored numerous articles on Quignard, Cixous, Michaux, Genet, Louis-Combet, and Hugo. She is the author of Rouge Hugo (PU du Septentrion, 2014). She directed and co-directed special issues on Hugo (Revue des Sciences humaines, 2011), Quignard (SITES, 2014; and Tangence, 2017), and edited a book on Louis-Combet: Visions, visitations, passions: En compagnie de Claude Louis-Combet (Corlevour, 2008). She also contributed to the Dictionnaire Sauvage Pascal Quignard (Hermann, 2016).