Pierre Klossowski
French writer, translator and artist (1905–2001)
Pierre Klossowski
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|
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Born |
9 August 1905
Paris
, France
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Died |
12 August 2001
(2001-08-12)
(aged
96)
Paris, France
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Occupation(s) | Writer, translator and artist |
Pierre Klossowski ( / k l ə ˈ s ɒ f s k i / ; French: [klɔˈsɔfski] ; 9 August 1905 – 12 August 2001) was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska , and his younger brother was the painter Balthus .
Life
Born in Paris, Pierre Klossowski was the older brother of the artist Balthazar Klossowski, better known as Balthus . Their parents were the art historian Erich Klossowski and the painter Baladine Klossowska . His German-educated father came from a family supposedly belonging to the former Polish petty nobility (drobna szlachta ) and bearing the Rola coat of arms. His mother, Baladine Klossowska, was born as Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro in Breslau , Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland). When he was 18, Pierre was André Gide 's secretary and worked on the drafts of Les faux-monnayeurs for him. Klossowski was responsible for a new publication of The 120 Days of Sodom & Other Writings by the Marquis de Sade in 1964.
Writing
Klossowski wrote full length volumes on the Marquis de Sade and Friedrich Nietzsche , a number of essays on literary and philosophical figures, and five novels. Roberte Ce Soir ( Roberte in the Evening ) provoked controversy due to its graphic depiction of sexuality. [1] He translated several important texts (by Virgil , Ludwig Wittgenstein , Martin Heidegger , Friedrich Hölderlin , Franz Kafka , Nietzsche , and Walter Benjamin ) into French, worked on films and was also an artist, illustrating many of the scenes from his novels. Klossowski participated in most issues of George Bataille's review, Acéphale , in the late 1930s.
His 1969 book, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle , greatly influenced French philosophers such as Michel Foucault , Gilles Deleuze , and Jean-François Lyotard . [2]
Film
Klossowski also appeared in Robert Bresson 's Au hasard Balthazar as the avaricious miller who desires Marie, a character played by Anne Wiazemsky .
He was involved in:
- Raoul Ruiz 's La vocation suspendue , 1977, 90';
- Raoul Ruiz 's L'hypothèse du tableau volé , 1979, 66';
- Pierre Zucca's Roberte , 1979, 100';
- Alain Fleischer's Pierre Klossowski ou l'éternel détour , 1996, 106'.
His text on de Sade is mentioned in the bibliography at the beginning of Pier Paolo Pasolini 's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom , and quoted several times through the film.
Drawings
An exhibition of Klossowski's drawings and life size sculptures made after them with sculptor Jean-Paul Réti ran from 20 September to 19 October 2006, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery , the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris along with a film retrospective.
Bibliography
Year | Original French | English Translation | |
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1947 |
Sade mon prochain
preceded by
Le philosophe scélérat
(Paris:
Seuil
, 1947)
Contents: Avertissement; Le philosophe scélérat. Sade mon prochain: Sade et la Révolution; Esquisse du système de Sade; Sous le masque de l'athéisme; Appendices. |
Sade My Neighbor
trans. by
Alphonso Lingis
(Northwestern University Press, 1991)
Contents: Translator's Introduction; Preface; The Philosopher Villain; Sade My Neighbor: Sade and the revolution; Outline of Sade's system; Under the Mask of Atheism. |
|
1950 | La Vocation suspendue (Paris: Gallimard , 1950) | The Suspended Vocation trans. by Jeremy M. Davies and Anna Fitzgerald with introduction by Brian Evenson (Small Press, 2020) | |
1954 | Roberte ce soir (Paris: Minuit , 1954) | Roberte ce soir and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes trans. by Austryn Wainhouse (Dalkey Archive Press, 2002) | |
1956 | Le Bain de Diane (Paris: Pauvert, 1956; Gallimard , 1980) | Diana at Her Bath/the Women of Rome trans. by Sophie Hawkes and Stephen Sartarelli (Marsilio Publishers, 1998) ISBN 1-56886-055-2 | |
1959 | La Révocation de l'édit de Nantes (Paris: Minuit , 1959) | Roberte ce soir and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes trans. by Austryn Wainhouse (Dalkey Archive Press, 2002) | |
1960 | Le Souffleur ou le théâtre de société (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1960) | - | |
1963 |
Un si funeste désir
(Paris:
Gallimard
, 1963)
Contents: Sur quelques thèmes fondamentaux de la Gaya Scienza de Nietzsche; Gide, du Bos et le démon; En marge de la correspondance de Claudel et de Gide; Préface à Un prêtre marié de Barbey d'Aurevilly; La messe de Georges Bataille; Le language, le silence et le communisme; Sur Maurice Blanchot; Nietzsche, le polythéisme et la parodie. |
Such a Deathly Desire trans. by Russell Ford (State University of New York Press, 2007) | |
1965 | Le Baphomet (Paris: Mercure de France , 1965) | The Baphomet trans. by Sophie Hawkes and Stephen Sartarelli ( Marsilio Pub , 1992) ISBN 0-941419-73-8 | |
1965 | Les Lois de l'hospitalité (Paris: Gallimard , 1965) (trilogy of the 'Roberte' novels: La Révocation de l'Édit de Nantes (1959), Roberte ce soir (1954), and Le Souffleur (1960)) | Roberte ce Soir and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes trans. by Austryn Wainhouse with introduction by Micheal Perkins (Dalkey Archive Press, 2002) | |
1968 | Origines Culturelles et mythiques d'un certain comportement des dames romaines (Paris: Fata Morgana , 1968) | Diana at Her Bath/the Women of Rome trans. by Sophie Hawkes and Stephen Sartarelli (Marsilio Publishers, 1998) ISBN 1-56886-055-2 | - |
1969 |
Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux
(Paris:
Mercure de France
, 1969)
Contents: Introduction; Le combat contre la culture; Les états valétudinaires à l'origine d'une sémiotique pulsionnelle; L'expérience de l'Éternel Retour; Les états valétudinaires à l'origine des quatre critères : décadence, essor, grégarité, cas singulier; Tentative d'une explication scientifique de l'Éternel Retour; Le cercle vicieux en tant que doctrine sélective; La consultation de l'obre paternelle; La plus belle invention du malade; L'euphorie de Turin; Note additionnelle à la sémiotique de Nietzsche. |
Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle
(London: The Athlone Press, 1997, 2000
ISBN
0-485-12133-6
; University of Chicago Press, 1998,
ISBN
0-226-44387-6
;)
Contents: Translator's Preface; Introduction; 1. The Combat against Culture; 2. The Valetudinary States at the Origin of a Semiotic of Impulses; 3. The Experience of the Eternal Return; 4. The Valetudinary States at the Origin of Four Criteria: Decadence, Vigour, Gregariousness, the Singular Case; 5. Attempt at a Scientific Explanation of the Eternal Return; 6. The Vicious Circle as a Selective Doctrine; 7. The Consultation of the Paternal Shadow; 8. The Most Beautiful Invention of the Sick; 9. The Euphoria of Turin; 10. Additional Note on Nietzsche's Semiotic; Notes; Index. |
|
1970 | La Monnaie vivante (Paris: Éric Losfield, 1970) | - | |
1984 | La Ressemblance (Marseille: André Dimanche, 1984) | - | |
1987 | Les derniers travaux de Gulliver (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1987) | - | |
1988 | Le Mage du Nord (Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1988) | - | |
Posthumous publications | |||
2001 | Écrits d'un monomane: Essais 1933–1939 (Paris: Gallimard , 2001) | - | |
2001 |
Tableaux vivants: Essais critiques 1936–1983
(Paris:
Gallimard
, 2001).
Contents: 1. Essais d'Acéphale: Don Juan selon Kierkegaard; Création du monde; Deux interprétations récentes de Nietzsche; Le monstre. 2. Trois amitiés: Rainer Maria Rilke et les Élégies de Duino ; Pierre Jean Jouvre romancier : Catherine Crachat ; Lettre sur Walter Benjamin. 3. Les règles de l'art: De Contre-Attaque à Acéphale; Explication continuée; Fragments d'une lettre à Michel Butor. 4. Du tableau vivant, en particulier: Du tableau vivant dans la peinture de Balthus; La 'Judith de Frédéric Tonnerre; On peut toujours dire que le trait...; L'on me demandait naguère pourquoi...; La description, l'argumentation, le récit...; Le geste muet du passage matériel au dessin; Du Simulacre. |
- | |
2001 | L'adolescent immortel (Paris: Gallimard , 2001) | The Immortal Adolescent trans by Catherine Petit & Paul Buck (London: Vauxhall&Company, 2014) | |
2003 | La Monnaie vivante (Paris: Gallimard , 2003) | Living Currency trans by Daniel W. Smith, Vernon W. Cisney, and Nicolae Morar (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) | |
Translations
- Friedrich Sieburg, Défense du nationalisme allemand , Grasset (1933)
- Friedrich Sieburg, Robespierre , E. Flammarion (1936)
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus suivi de Investigations philosophiques (1961)
- Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche (1971)
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Le Gai Savoir
- Walter Benjamin, L'œuvre d'art à l'époque de sa reproduction mécanisée [in consultation with the author for the first publication of the essay in 1936]
- J. G. Hamann, Les Méditations Bibliques , Minuit (1948). Critical edition, Éditions Ionas, 2016, read online .
See also
References
- ↑ Alex Hughes, "Erotic Writing" in Hughes and Keith Reader, Encyclopedia of contemporary French culture , (pp. 187–88). London, Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-13186-3
- ↑ Smith, Daniel W.; Klossowski, Pierre (1997). Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 0-226-44387-6 .
Further reading
- Agostini, Giulia: Der Riss im Text. Schein und Wahrheit im Werk Pierre Klossowskis , Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7705-5323-5 . In German.
- Arnaud, A., Pierre Klossowski (Paris: Seuil, 1990) ISBN 978-2-02-011495-0 In French.
- Decottignies, J., Klossowski notre prochain (Paris: H. Veyrier, 1985) ISBN 978-2-85199-377-9 In French.
- Decottignies, J., Pierre Klossowski. Biographie d’un monomane (Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1997) ISBN 978-2-85939-523-0 In French.
- Faulkner, J., “The Vision, the Riddle, and the Vicious Circle: Pierre Klossowski Reading Nietzsche’s Sick Body through Sade’s Perversion.” Textual Practice . 21[1] (March 2007): 43–69.
- Hill, Leslie, Bataille, Klossowski, Blanchot: Writing at the Limit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
- James, Ian, Pierre Klossowski: The Persistence of a Name (Oxford: Legenda, 2000)
- James, Ian and Ford, Russell (guest editors), Diacritics , Special Issue: Whispers of the Flesh Essays in Memory of Pierre Klossowski, 35[1] (Spring 2005).
- Lugan-Dardigna, A.-M., Klossowski. L’homme aux simulacres (Paris: Navarin, 1986) ISBN 2-86827-044-1 In French.
- Madou, J.-P., Démons et simulacres dans l’œuvre de Pierre Klossowski (Paris: Méridiens Klincksiek, 1987) ISBN 978-2-86563-182-7 In French.
- Marroni, A., Klossowski e la comunicazione artistica (Palermo: Centro Internazionale Studi di Estetica, 39, 1993)
- Marroni, A., Pierre Klossowski. Sessualità, vizio e complotto nella filosofia (Milan: Costa & Nolan, 1999) ISBN 978-88-7648-383-7
- Bennett, Jill, "Kama and Eroticism", Body . The Art Gallery of New South Wales (1997). ISBN 0-9587206-0-6
- Marroni, A. Laws of perversion and hospitality in Pierre Klossowski , "Journal of European Psychoanalysis", 25, 2007;
- Marroni, A. L'arte dei simulacri. Il dèmone estetico di Pierre Klossowski , Costa & Nolan, Milan 2009, ISBN 978-88-7437-124-2 ;
- Spira, Anthony, & Sarah Wilson, Pierre Klossowski (Ostfilden: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006) ISBN 3-7757-1792-7 . Exhibition Catalogue. Whitechapel Gallery London 20 September - 19 November 2006, Ludwig Museum Cologne 21 December 2006 - 18 March 2007, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris 2 April - 4 June 2007.
- Tremblay, Thierry, Anamnèses. Essai sur l'œuvre de Pierre Klossowski (Paris: Hermann, 2012). ISBN 978-2-7056-8277-4 In French.
- Ubilluz, Juan Carlos, Sacred Eroticism: Georges Bataille and Pierre Klossowski in the Latin American Erotic Novel (Bucknell University Press, 2006) ISBN 0-8387-5625-5
External links
- Klossowski obituary from The Independent , 14 August 2001, by Ian James
- Klossowski obituary from Art Forum , November 2001, by Benjamin Ivry
- Reading Pierre Klossowski from Context , by John Taylor
- Book review and biography , by Brett Bowles
- Pierre Klossowski biography by Elena Filipovic, focussing on his drawing
- Pierre Klossowski page on the-artists.org
- Journal of European Psychoanalysis
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