Pleynet, Marcelin 1933-

PERSONAL:

Born December 23, 1933, in Lyon, France.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Éditions Gallimard, 5, rue Sébastien-Bottin, 75328 Paris cedex 07, France.

CAREER:

Art critic, editor, and educator. Tel Quel, secretary and managing editor, 1962-82; also worked for L'Infini; École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France, professor and chair of aesthetics.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Prix Fénéon, for Provisoires amants des Nègres, 1957-1959.

WRITINGS:

Provisoires amants des Nègres, 1957-1959: Poésies, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1962.

Paysages en deux, suivi de les lignes de la prose: Poésies, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1963.

Comme: Poésie, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1965.

L'Enseignement de la peinture: Essais, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1967, revised as Système de la peinture, Essais, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1977, translated by Sima N. Godfrey as Painting and System, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1984.

Lautréamont par lui-même, (biography), Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1967.

(With Michel Ragon) L'Art abstrait, (criticism), five volumes, Maeght (Paris, France), 1970–87.

(With Michel Seuphor and Michel Ragon) L'Art abstrait, five volumes, Maeght (Paris, France), 1971–1988.

Quelques problèmes de la peinture moderne: Louis Cane, Y. Lambert (Paris, France), 1972.

Stanze: Incantation dite au bandeau d'or I-IV, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1973.

Dominique Thiolat: Oeuvres récentes, Editions Galerie Rencontres (Saint Maur, France), 1975.

Tendences actuelles de la nouvelle peinture americaine, Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France), 1975.

Cy Twombly: Dessins 1954-1976, Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France), 1976.

(With Tsutomu Iwasaki) Kaiga no oshie, Asahi Shuppansha (Tokyo, Japan), 1976.

Art et littérature (criticism), Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1977.

(With William Stanley Rubin) Paris-New York, Situation de l'art, Chêne (Paris, France), 1978.

Max Jacob: Dessins, Shakespeare & Company (Paris, France), 1978.

L'artiste au passé et au présent: Christian Parisot, Musée d'art moderne (Céret, France), 1978.

Vocation de la culture moderne, Centre d'art plastiques contemporains (Bordeaux, France), 1978.

Jean-Pierre Péricaud: Peintures, dessins, Musée de l'Abbaye Sainte-Croix (Les Sables d'Olonne, France), 1978.

(With Joan Miró) Miró et la culture moderne, Maeght (Paris, France), 1978.

Oeuvres récentes: N. Cassegrain, J.-Y. Langlois, P. Nivollet, M. Reithmann, C. Sorg, D. Thiolat, Galerie Katia Pissarro et Christian Duvernois (Paris, France), 1979.

Osvaldo Romberg et l'enseignement des couleurs, Editions Modernes d'Art (Paris, France), 1979.

Tendences de l'art en France: 1968-1978-79: ARC (animation, recherche, confrontation), Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France), 1979.

Transculture: Entretiens, essais et conferences, Union générale d'éditions (Paris, France), 1979.

Le Voyage en Chine: Chroniques du journal ordinaire, 11 avril-3 mai 1974: Extraits, Hachette (Paris, France), 1980.

Rime, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1981.

Spirito peregrino: Chroniques du journal ordinaire 1979, Hachette (Paris, France), 1981.

Marc Devade, Peintures 1979-1981, Entretien avec Marcelin Pleynet, Ch. Corlet (Condé-sur-Noireau, France), 1981.

Michael Gitlin: Works, 1974-1980, Städtische Galerie (Erlangen, Germany), 1981.

(With Aki Kuroda) Aki Kuroda, ContiNUITé Galerie Adrien Maeght (Paris, France), 1982.

(With Jacqueline Risset and Max Loreau) La Poésie c'est à dire l'écriture, (Paris, France), 1982.

L'Amour: Chroniques du journal ordinaire 1980, Extraits, Hachette (Paris, France), 1982.

Painting and System, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1984.

Les Trois Livres (poetry; contains Comme, Les lignes de la prose, and Provisoires amants des Nègres), Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1984.

Fragments du choeur: Vers et proses (title means "Fragments of the Choir: Poetry and Prose"), Denoël (Paris, France), 1984.

Poésie et psychanalyse: A propos de Pierre Jean Jouve, 1923, 1933, 1954, 1981, Actuels (Clermont Frangy, France), 1984.

L'Amour vénitien, Editions Carte Blanche (Montmorency, France), 1984.

Vent-anni d'arte in Francia, 1960-1980, Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna, Italy), 1984.

(With Anne Madden Le Brocquy) Anne Madden: Pintures Galeria Maeght (Barcelona, Spain), 1985.

Réflexion sur le hors cadre dans l'oeuvre de Graham Cantieni: Graham Cantieni, la serie "Parataxe," la Galerie Zôgraphia (Bordeaux, France), 1985.

(With Pierre Buraglio) Buraglio, Musée de Valence (Valence, France), 1985.

Les Etats-Unis de la peinture (criticism), Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1986.

Prise d'otage (novel; title means "The Taking of a Hostage"), Denoël (Paris, France), 1986.

(With Pierre Buraglio) La Grande Elégie doit tout dire La Sétérée (Crest, France), 1986.

Plaisir à la tempête (poems), Editions Carte Blanche (Paris, France), 1987.

Premières poésies, 1950-1965 (poems), Cadex (Montpellier, France), 1987.

(With Jacqueline Risset) Marcelin Pleynet (poems), Seghers (Paris, France), 1988.

(With James Coignard) James Coignard Editions D. Papierski (Paris, France), 1989.

Le Jour et l'heure: Journal, Plon (Paris, France), 1989.

(With Robert Motherwell) Robert Motherwell, Editions Daniel Papierski (Paris, France), 1989.

Les Modernes et la tradition (criticism), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1990.

(With Dominique Thiolat) L'Amour vénitien, Gallerie Christine Debras (Brussels, Belgium), 1990.

Daniel Gerhardt: Encres, Galerie Sollertis (Toulouse, France), 1990.

Giorgione et les deus Vénus: Plaisir à "La Tempête" (criticism), Maeght (Paris, France), 1991.

La Vie à deux ou trois (novel; title means "Life with Two or Three"), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1992.

(With Henry Yéru) Le Génie de la Bastille, Association de la Bastille (Paris, France), 1992.

(With Ernest Pignon Ernest) L'Homme habite poétiquement: Entretiens, Actes Sud (Arles, France), 1993.

Henri Matisse (criticism), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1993.

Jean Miotte (criticism), Cercle d'art (Paris, France), 1993.

Le Propre du temps, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1995.

Claire Pichaud: Suite saturnienne 1992-1995, Galerie Bernard Jordan (Paris, France), 1995.

Le Plus Court Chemin: De Tel Quel à l'Infini (autobiography), Gallimard (Paris, France), 1997.

Notes sur le motif, suivi de La Dogana, Dumerchez (Creil, France), 1998.

Jean-Michel Meurice, Galerie Jeanne Bucher (Paris, France), 1998.

Arman: La liberté en peinture, Galerie Piltzer (Paris, France), 1999.

Chardin, le sentiment et l'esprit du temps (criticism), Epure (Paris, France), 1999.

De Tel Quel à l'Infini: L'avant-garde et après: Colloques de Londres et de Paris (autobiography), Pleins feux (Nantes, France), 1999.

Rothko, et la France (criticism), Editions de l'Epure (Paris, France), 1999.

Les Voyageurs de l'an 2000 (novel), Gallimard (Paris, France), 2000.

Poésie et révolution: La révolution du style (criticism), Editions pleins feux (Nantes, France), 2000.

Judit Reigl (criticism), Adam Biro (Paris, France), 2001.

Le Póntos (essay), Gallimard (Paris, France), 2002.

Alechinsky: le pinceau voyageur, Gallimard (Paris, France), 2002.

Rimbaud en son temps: situation, Gallimard (Paris, France), 2005.

(With Chris Dercon and Frédérique Verlinden) Luciano Figueiredo: du journal à la peinture, Fage (Lyon, France), 2005.

Also author of La scène primitive = de primitieve scene, Musée Royaux des Beaux Arts (Brussels, Belgium), and with Daniel Dezeuze of Le nouveau grand espace, Y. Lambert (Paris, France). Recorded cassette tapes Opéra séria, Artalect (Paris, France), 1985; and (with Philippe Sollers), L'Avant-garde aujourd'hui, Radio France, 1973. Contributor to Jeanclos: Le tympan de Saint-Ayoul, Editions de la Différence (Paris, France), 1986. Contributor to periodicals, including Art-Presse and Documents Sud. Editorial director of a series on the history and philosophy of art, Editions Daniel Papierski. Works have been translated into Spanish and Japanese.

SIDELIGHTS:

Marcelin Pleynet is a prolific and wideranging writer in a variety of different genres. The author of important critical works about art and literature, he is also a poet and novelist, as well as an historian. Pleynet has published some autobiographical works, as well, such as Le Plus Court Chemin: De Tel Quel à l'Infini and several volumes of a journal: Le jour et l'heure, Le Voyage en Chine, Spirito peregrino, and L'Amour.

Pleynet is a formidable art critic, bringing to bear on artworks his own subjective response, but also seeking, as Adelaide M. Russo observed in Dalhousie French Studies, to locate or place each art work in its appropriate historical and ideological frame or context. His criticism is multidisciplinary. Faithful to the intellectual underpinnings of Tel Quel, with its adherence to Marxist and Freudian interpretation, Pleynet believes it is important to understand both the conditions for art's production and consumption. He habitually tries to establish links between a painter's life and his or her work. Part of Pleynet's critique of modernism is that it seeks to seal art off in an airtight realm removed from everyday life, whereas for Pleynet art is dynamic and dialectical, involved in a constant interchange with life. This critic views modernism as a form of resistance to various kinds of twentiethcentury fascism. Pleynet's thought has been influenced not only by Marx and Freud but also by Heidegger and Lacan.

Whether writing poetry, prose fiction, or criticism, Pleynet's style is flexible and diverse. Among his most significant critical volumes are: L'enseignement de la peinture, revised and reissued a decade later as Système de la peinture, and published in English in a translation by Sima N. Godfrey in 1984; Art et littérature; Transculture; Les Etats-Unis de la peinture; and Les modernes et la tradition. Pleynet's art criticism is up to the minute and engages such contemporary American artists as Robert Motherwell and Cy Twombly.

Denis Hollier, writing in A New History of French Literature, viewed Pleynet as a playful poet writing verse as a process, or meta-poetry. His poetic oeuvre includes: Provisoires amants des Nègres, 1957-1959,

which won an award; Poésies; Comme; Rime; Stanze; and Fragments du choeur: Vers et proses. In keeping with its title, the last named collection embodies a chorus of different voices and includes literary essays. Critic M. Bishop, reviewing this collection in World Literature Today, singled out as particularly notable the essays "Shakespeare in Progress" and "Racine devant Baudelaire."

Pleynet has written several novels. In La Vie à deux ou trois, an unnamed narrator tells the story of a ménage à trois. The narrator marries Hélène and he, she, and her brother, Carl, travel about the world together. After his wife goes mad and his brother-inlaw succumbs to drugs, the narrator is left alone. In Prise d'otage, antihero Albert Rhone eventually commits suicide after journeying from Switzerland through France to Italy as the cynical but willing tool of the mysterious criminal Stakys. As reviewer F.C. St. Aubyn expressed it in a review for World Literature Today, Rhone is a "hostage to his own postexistential angst."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Brosnan, Catherine Savage, editor, Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Culture, Volume 2, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1995, p. 288.

Hollier, Denis, A New History of French Literature, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1989.

Pleynet, Marcelin, Le Plus Court Chemin: De Tel Quel à l'Infini, Gallimard (Paris, France), 1997.

Pleynet, Marcelin, De Tel Quel à l'Infini: L'avantgarde et après: Colloques de Londres et de Paris, Pleins feux (Nantes, France), 1999.

Tilby, Michael, editor, Beyond the Nouveau Roman, Berg Publishers (New York, NY), 1990.

PERIODICALS

Art in America, July, 1985, Donald B. Kuspit, review of Painting and System, pp. 15-19.

Dalhousie French Studies, fall-winter, 1991, Adelaide M. Russo, "Marcelin Pleynet: Mediating Surrealism—The Poet As Polemicist," pp. 141- 156.

French Review, December, 1988, Jacques Laroche, review of Prise d'otage, pp. 364-365.

Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature, summer, 1994, Joan Brandt, "Questioning the Postmodern: Deguy, Jabès and Pleynet," pp. 167-175.

Times Literary Supplement, March 10, 1978, Stephen Bann, review of Art et littérature, p. 287; May 31, 1985, Stephen Bann, review of Painting and System, p. 602.

World Literature Today, spring, 1985, M. Bishop, review of Fragments du choeur: Vers et proses, p. 243; spring, 1987, F.C. St. Aubyn, review of Prise d'otage, p. 248; spring, 1993, F.C. St. Aubyn, review of La vie à deux ou trois, p. 325; winter, 1998, Roland A. Champagne, review of Le Plus Court Chemin: De Tel Quel à l'Infini, pp. 102-103.

ONLINE

Fundació Antoni Tàpies, http://www.fundaciotapies. org/ (September 25, 2006), brief profile of the Marcelin Pleynet.

Jean-Michel Maulpoix & Cie … Web site, http:// www.maulpoix.net/ (September 25, 2006), Jean- Michel Maulpoix, "French Poetry since 1950: Tendencies II."

Poetrymagazinesorg.uk, http://www.poetrymagazines. org.uk/ (September 25, 2006), Serge Gavronsky, "Interview with Marcelin Pleynet, Paris 1987."