PhotoSaintGermain-Michel Butor, portrait ultrasensible

Michel Butor, portrait ultrasensible

General curation: Agathe Sanjuan

Scientific curation: Nicolas Barbey and Élisabeth Collin-Canto

The writer Michel Butor (1926‑2016) made dialogue between the arts the engine of his creation. Renowned as an emblem of the Nouveau Roman, his work expanded early on into essays and poetry. He practiced photography for a decade (1951‑1961) before turning to the lenses of photographers to co-create artist books. Collaborating with them – as well as with painters and printmakers – he produced nearly 1,800 books published in limited editions, printed or manuscript, weaving poetry with image in a constantly renewed invention of forms.

The poet's imagination drew upon a sensitive matter all his own, as well as an encyclopedic and humanist erudition unfolding across the arts and sciences. On the occasion of the Michel Butor Centenary and the Bicentenary of photography, the exhibition "Michel Butor, portrait ultrasensible" reveals an unpublished aspect of the science-loving poet. Butor invites us to look at scientific books differently, discerning within them their own visual and textual poetry. In this exhibition, we propose to rekindle these correspondences, associating with the artist books of Butor and his photographers scientific works or objects from Université Paris Cité that were landmark contributions and remain remarkable. Ancient, rare, and valuable today, they bear witness to the state of research, the birth of disciplines, and knowledge that evolves over time. These face-to-face dialogues contribute today, through poetry and science, to giving us a sensitive perception of the living world.

This exhibition takes place within the framework of the PhotoSaintGermain festival. Organized in the heart of Paris, in the iconic Saint‐Germain‐des‐Prés neighborhood, PhotoSaintGermain is an annual festival dedicated to promoting photographic creation.

PhotoSaintGermain offers a free and freely accessible exhibition tour across a selection of museums, cultural centers, galleries, and bookstores on the Left Bank. This tour highlights a sharp and eclectic program designed by associated galleries, as well as several original exhibitions and novel projects imagined and produced by the festival.