The photographs of Alix Cléo Roubaud were rarely exhibited during her short life. First noticed by Alain Desvergnes, the series Si quelque chose noir was exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles in 1983, a few months after her death. The exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France sheds light on this mysterious and uncompromising body of work.
The name Alix Cléo Roubaud could easily have sunk into oblivion if Jacques Roubaud hadn’t published a selection of her private writings and a few selected photographs. This partial publication was not indicative of the extent of her oeuvre; Roubaud left behind over six hundred photographs, the discovery of which not only pull them away from the shadows, but also from the illustrative status suggested by their appearance in her Journal. The subjects, which include her friends, travels and domestic life, appear, at first glance, tenuous. “It’s difficult to untangle her life from her work,” writes Hélène Giannecchini. Indeed, the work is organic above all. Writing and images cannot, in fact, be separated, and Roubaud’s interest in philosophy is the work’s foundation. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thought was not dominant in universities when Roubaud began to write her thesis. This choice, unusual for the time, exerted a deep influence on her practice of photography, and the question of the image also fed her work on Wittgenstein. She revealed herself to be an intrepid thinker. This aspect of her thought is evident in her published writings, interspersed with notes on the photography, both on how she approached it and conceived of it.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
EXHIBITION
Alix Cléo Roubaud, Un sens exact d’asymétrie
October 28th 2014 – February 1st 2015
Bibliothèque nationale de France
François Mitterand
Quai François-Mauriac
75706 Paris Cedex 13
France
