Fleischer, Alain 1944-

PERSONAL:

Born January 10, 1944, in Paris, France. Education: Attended the Sorbonne, Paris, France, and l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, Paris, France.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Galerie Michèle Chomette, 24 rue Beauborg, 75003 Paris, France; Jayne H. Baum Gallery, 588 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

CAREER:

Writer, photographer, artist, educator, and filmmaker. Exhibitions: Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1975, 1982; Studio 666, Paris, France, 1980, 1983, 1984; Multi- Media Gallery and French Institute, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1981; Students Gallery, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1981; French Institute, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, 1981; French Institute, Split, Yugoslavia, 1981; Centre of Photography, Patino Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland, 1986; French Institute, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1987; Villa Medicis, Rome, Italy, 1987; Galerie Michèle Chomette, Paris, France, 1987, 1990, 1992; Galleria M.R., Rome, Italy, 1988; Galerie des beaux-arts, Nantes, France, 1988; Photography Gallery, Kladno, Czechoslovakia, 1988; Jayne H. Baum Gallery, New York, NY, 1989, 1995; Musée de l'ancien évêché, Evreux, France, 1989; Past Rays Gallery, Yokohama, Japan, 1989; French Institute, Budapest, Hungary, 1989; French Institute, Naples, Italy, 1989; French Institute, Cologne, Germany, 1989; Sala Joseph M. Gugol, Catalonia, Spain, 1990; Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, France, 1990; Galerie Optica, Montreal, Canada, 1991; Museo de Bilbao, Spain, 1991; Ateneum Museum, Helsinki, Finland, 1991; Museo d'arte moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1993.

Works included in permanent collections at Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris; Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Musées de Marseille, France; Musées d'Aurillac, France; Musée de l'Abbaye Sainte Croix, Les Sables d'Olonne, France; Musée Réattu, Arles, France; Fonds national d'art contemporain, Paris; Fonds régional d'art contemporain des Pays de Loire, Clisson, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain de Languedoc Roussillon, Montpelier, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain Champagne Ardennes, Reims, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain de Franche Conté, Dole, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain de Bourgogne, Dijon, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain de Basse Normandie, Caen, France; Fonds régional d'art contemporain Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur, Marseille, France; Museum of Modern Art, Jerusalem, Israel; and The Art Institute, Chicago, IL.

WRITINGS:

Alain Fleischer: Vanités, Musee de l'Abbaye Sainte- Croix (Les Sables-d'Olonne, Vendee, France), 1985.

Alain Fleischer: installations/photographies: 20 juin/31 juillet 1987, Abbaye-aux-Dames, Caen, Fonds régional d'art contemporain, Basse- Normandie (Caen, France), 1987.

Là pour ça, Flammarion (Paris, France), 1987. (Photographer) Franz Kafka, text by Jean Guerreschi, Marval (Paris, France), 1990.

Quelques obscurcissments, Deyrolle (Paris, France), 1991.

Pris au mot: livre d'images, Deyrolle (Paris, France), 1992.

Faire le noir: notes et études sur le cinéma, Marval (Paris, France), 1995.

L'art d'Alain Resnais, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), 1998.

La femme qui avait deux bouches: et autres récits, Seuil (Paris, France), 1999.

(Photographer) Brune Recine, Living in Rome, translated by Deke Dusinberre, Flammarion (Paris, France), 2000.

Mummy, mummies: Nouvelle, avec hors-text et pré-texte, Verdier (Lagrasse, France), 2002.

Alain Fleischer: La vitesse d'évasion, Scheer (Paris, France), 2003.

La femme couchée par écrit: essai-interface-nouvelle, Scheer (Paris, France), 2005.

Eros/Hercule: pour une érotique du sport, Musardine (Paris, France), 2005.

L'accent, un langue fantôme, Seuil (Paris, France), 2005.

NOVELS

Quatre voyageurs, Seuil (Paris, France), 2000.

Les trapézistes et le rat, Seuil (Paris, France), 2001.

Les ambitions désavouées, Seuil (Paris, France), 2003.

Immersion, Gallimard (Paris, France), 2005.

L'amant en culottes courtes (novel), Seuil (Paris, France), 2006.

Filmmaker; works include Le jeune cinema français à Cannes, 1977; Zoo Zero, 1978; Là pour ça, 1982; Pierre Klossowski, portrait de l'artiste en souffleur, 1982; Ombres d'Asie, 1982; Riverrun, 1983; L'embarquement pour Cythère, 1983; Le voyage du brise-glace ou pays des miroirs, 1983; L'Aventure Générale, 1984; L'Art d'exposer, 1984; Boltanski par Fleischer, 1984; Cinéma et Photographie, 1984; Daniel Buren, 1985; Demi-frères, 1985; L'Art d'exposer II, 1985; Le dernier voyage en Italie, 1987; Romeo Romeo, 1990; Daniel Cordier: le Regard d'un Amateur, 1990; Grands Artistes observés par un veilleur de nuit, 1992; and Bukitrok, 1992.

Contributor to books, including Fabio Mauri, l'écran mental, Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Alain Fleischer is an author, filmmaker, photographer, and artist whose works have been displayed in galleries throughout the world. A biographer in Contemporary Photographers noted that Fleischer's film work alternates between fictional stories and careful observations of art and artists of his time. Fleischer's fiction is "sometimes overtly autobiographical in nature, in which the writing resembles the mechanism of memory and desire, at the same time implacable and elegant," the Contemporary Photographers biographer wrote. An observer of Fleischer's photographs, the biographer stated, "rediscovers the taste for the mechanisms of sight in his photographic works and installation, which represent an important part of his work in their own right." Fleischer, the biographer concluded, "is endowed with something of the appetite of a Renaissance man, at the stage where an individual could still hope to embrace the near-totality of human knowledge."

In his novel Quatre voyageurs, Fleischer "poses the question of identity in a postmodernist style," noted reviewer Donald J. Dziekowicz in World Literature Today. In the beginning of the book, a quartet of travelers takes pains to conceal their real identities from each other, changing their names and sources. As the book progresses, the reader learns that this story of shifting identities is part of a story being read by the real narrator, Hungarian Zoltan Schwarz, who finds himself traveling abroad with three companions in a situation remarkably like the one he has just read about in a work of fiction. His three companions are a Portuguese man named Braquinho da Rosa, an Irishman named Gary Green, and Marcel Blanc, a Frenchman. Each is traveling to an academic meeting in the American West to hear works on the topic of "The World and Its Double." The question of identity is further blurred when the men begin to awaken occupying each other's bodies. "Not only is the identity of each of these men in different bodies questioned, but also the reality of the world around them," commented Dziekowicz. The novel is an "intelligently crafted work, humorous and satirical at times, disturbing yet tedious at others," Dziekowicz concluded.

With Les trapézistes et le rat, Fleischer turns from questions of individual, personal identity to a consideration of "issues of time and space, love and death (l'amour et la mort), reality and fantasy," observed Dziekowicz in another World Literature Today review. In a Transylvanian inn, newlywed couple Peter and Marta celebrate their marriage while surrounded by a variety of aging circus performers and animals of all types from various parts of the world. "The young couple not only face each other on a metaphorical tightrope, … but also, according to Peter's account, experience a variety of sexual encounters with all the circus performers and animals in defiance of time and age," commented Dziekowicz. In the second part of the novel, a character named Sandor tries to make sense of what Peter has related to him, complicated by the fact that Peter and Marta no longer have any physi- cal contact with each other, communicating only by mail or by phone. In the third and last part, Marta sends letters to Sandor that provide her perspective and help explain the situation. Through their intense experiences with each other and with the circus performers, the young couple transcend the role of married pair and even enter a state of experience beyond the concepts of union and separation. Dziekowicz commented favorably on Fleischer's incorporation of literary and cinematic references into the text of the book, and noted the "satisfying lyrical passages" throughout the novel.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Photographers, 3rd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, August, 2000, Edward K. Owusu- Ansah, review of Living in Rome, p. 139.

New York Times, February 24, 1995, Charles Hagen, "Art in Review," review of Alain Fleischer exhibition.

World Literature Today, winter, 2002, Donald J. Dziekowicz, "Alain Fleischer: Quatre voyageurs," p. 172; July-September, 2003, Donald J. Dziekowicz, review of Les trapézistes et le rat, p. 115.