M HKA Ensembles

Artist Novel, 18 x 25,9 cm, 224 p., language : English/French, publisher : Dijon: Les presses du reel, ISBN : 978-3-03764-308-2.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2029/7).

Literary synopsis

For their first artist's novel, Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet draw inspiration from the American popular genre of the “pulp”—a genre mostly dedicated to fantastic literature and science–fiction—to present a first overview of their work. With the participation of Stéphane Berard, Céline Minard, Emmanuelle Pireyre.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet commissioned a graphic illustrator to design a “pulp” cover and three authors to write curious short stories whose outlines are derived from their artworks and their recent exhibitions. Hervé & Maillet have also redesigned all of them as black and white illustrations to accompany their performance scripts and own texts such as the 19th-century-like serial story they published in 2012 in a regional newspaper. Fascinated by narrative processes and multi-layered (hi)stories, their book is a way to filter their practice through a literary genre they are familiar with.

In February–May 2012, Hervé & Maillet presented a solo show at CAC Synagogue de Delme with an installation called Strange Attraction. On display, there were shelves for the ten issues of Le Républicain Lorrain containing the ten episodes of the serial Strange Attraction previously published on its pages, as well as vitrines containing loans from the association Ad Duodecimum, the Musée Barrois and the musée départemental du Sel de Marsal, with objects related to the artist's novel's fiction.

Novel's website