M HKA Ensembles

Book, 22.5 x 14 cm, 97 p., language : English, publisher : Onestar Press, Paris.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2027/159).

Literary synopsis

Laurence Harvey, the name of an actor and today the name of a book, or the subject of a book, or simply a name upon the page under which the subtitle reads: “Motion Pictures, White Wine, Older Women and Thin Cigarettes”. Why should we consider studying the life of an actor, his sexual preferences, neurosis and dietary habits when we are only left dangerously intoxicated by his celebrity? Undoubtedly, it is because one can find this work of art akin to a script suppressed by the Hollywood of yesterday, and here it is today far better served as an imaginary film wherein the hero is more or less familiar to us.  Logically inscribed in Matthew Brannon’s work, the artist presents us with an experimental biography, a veritable work of writing, montage of excerpts, witness accounts and interior monologues peppered with a few quotes by Derrida.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Author’s Note: “This book is and is not what it purports to be. Its content is reckless. I don’t remember writing most of it. My research was in spurts. I picked it up and put it down for five years. I both understood and did not why I was writing it. It concerns: frustrated ambition, mountains of insecurity and the limits of talent. It’s about the actor Laurence Harvey. And like any biography you know how it ends. It is a work of fiction based on real events and real people. It is not intended as historical and it borrows heavily from others research. It is an artwork about being a biographer. It is an artwork that takes the form of telling people you’re writing a biography.

-Matthew Brannon, New York, 2014

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