Ce livre marque en 2020 le 40e anniversaire de l’œuvre de Roland Barthes La Chambre claire. L’artiste Odette England a invité plus de 200 artistes, écrivains, critiques, conservateurs et historiens du monde entier à contribuer à une image ou à un texte qui reflète l’instantané inédit de sa mère à l’âge de cinq ans.
Cet instantané est connu sous le nom de photographie de jardin d’hiver. Barthes en parle longuement dans La Chambre Claire, mais ne le reproduit jamais. C’est l’une des photos les plus célèbres au monde.
This book marks the 40th anniversary of Roland Barthes’ renowned work Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire) in 2020. Artist Odette England invited more than 200 photography-based artists, writers, critics, curators, and historians from around the world to contribute an image or text that reflects on Barthes’ unpublished snapshot of his mother at age five.
This snapshot is known as the Winter Garden photograph. Barthes discusses it at length in Camera Lucida, but never reproduces it. It is one of the most famous unseen photographs in the world.
La Chambre claire écrit par le théoricien littéraire français Roland Barthes, est sans doute l’un des livres les plus influents sur la photographie. Publié en 1980, peu avant sa mort, le livre rend également hommage à la défunte mère de Barthes, Henriette. Barthes y discute d’un précieux cliché pris en 1898, connu sous le nom de photographie du jardin d’hiver. C’est une image d’Henriette, âgée de cinq ans, non montrée dans La Chambre Claire.
Keeper of the Hearth : Picturing Roland Barthes’ Unseen Photograph présente des centaines d’images et de textes, soutenus par trois essais. Les essayistes comprennent Douglas Nickel, professeur d’histoire de l’art et de l’architecture à l’Université Brown, Andrea V. Rosenthal; Lucy Gallun, conservatrice associée au Département de photographie au Musée d’art moderne; et Phillip Prodger, chercheur principal au Yale Center for British Art. Avant-propos de Charlotte Cotton, conservatrice indépendante et écrivaine, photos en n.b. et en couleurs.
Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire) written by French literary theorist Roland Barthes, is arguably one of the most influential books about photography. Published in 1980, shortly before his death, the book is also a tribute to Barthes’ late mother, Henriette. In it, Barthes discusses a treasured snapshot taken in 1898, known as the Winter Garden photograph. It is an image of Henriette, aged five, not shown Camera Lucida. Barthes describes it as follows:
“With the Photograph, we enter into flat Death. The horror is this: nothing to say about the death of one whom I love most, nothing to say about her photograph, which I contemplate without ever being able to get to the heart of it, to transform it. The only “thought” I can have is that at the end of this first death, my own death is inscribed; between the two, nothing more than waiting…”.
Keeper of the Hearth: Picturing Roland Barthes’ Unseen Photograph features hundreds of images and texts, supported by three essays. Essayists include Douglas Nickel, Andrea V. Rosenthal Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Brown University; Lucy Gallun, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art; and Phillip Prodger, Senior Research Scholar, Yale Center for British Art. Foreword by Charlotte Cotton, independent curator and writer.
“What strikes me most about the collective response that is contained within Keeper of the Hearth is the enduring capacity of Barthes’ writing to be a creative springboard for many”. Charlotte Cotton
Odette England is an Australia/British artist, writer, and curator. Her work has shown in more than 90 solo, two-person and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, and Asia. Keeper of the Hearth is England’s first edited volume. She lives and works in Rhode Island and New York.
