OEI #106–107: Lettrists & Photography
336 pages, 2025
ISSN: 1404-5095
ISBN: 978-91-88829-40-5

Lettrists & Photography is, which is indeed a remarkable fact, the first large-scale synthesis of Lettrist photography as a precise ‘system’. And not least given the often stunning – visual and conceptual – intensity of many of these innovative works, which haven’t lost their relevance and still haven’t received the attention they would merit.

OEI #106–107: Lettrists & Photography presents the universe of the Lettrist movement’s engagement with photography from the 1950s up until 2013 in three encompassing chapters written by Frédéric Acquaviva. It reproduces around 430 photographic works and documents, and also includes English translations of texts by and interviews with Isidore Isou, Maurice Lemaître and Frédérique Devaux.

“The first phase was to call photography into question. Through scratches and tears, the surface of the image was worked on, transformed within itself. This is the chiselling stage. Then we propose Lettrist photography, which transforms the old object into a letter or sign, re­defining it as a simple particle in a system of elements that has become the alphabet of a new script. Hypergraphic photography goes even further, using any sign or graphic design to create a poly-writing system resulting in billions of characters, existing, artificial or new. Going even further, in 1956 our movement introduced infinitesimal photography, creating works composed of elements that exist only insofar as they allow us to imagine other elements, non-existent or possible. Each element must make us think of other elements. Infinitesimal photography is made up of billions of pieces of virtual data!
Then, in 1960, the Lettrist movement unveiled a new dimension: supertemporal photo­graphy. With supertemporal photography, I offer a framework within which each viewer can act in his or her own way. Far superior to today’s happenings it has no time limit. The image is forever open to new amateurs who erase or continue what has already been done on the photograph by previous amateurs. It’s a work that has been going on for centuries! This is our creation in photography. […] We amuse ourselves at the level at which things are done, and we see them twenty years ahead of time. To say that Lettrist photography doesn’t exist is to say that no photograph exists …”
(Isidore Isou, 1973)

Innehåll

A
THE FOUNDATIONS OF LETTRIST PHOTOGRAPHY (1950-1968)
Frédéric Acquaviva

I INTRODUCTION TO LETTRIST
PHOTOGRAPHY & EARLY PORTRAITS (1950) 7

II ISIDORE ISOU, AMOS (1952–1953) 15

Notes on the art of the photographer or metaphotography (1953), Jean-Isidore Isou 26

III MAURICE LEMAÎTRE, CANAILLES (1952–1953) 28

Lettrist photography and chiselled photography (1953), Maurice Lemaître 30

IV THE LETTRIST INTERNATIONAL:
DEBORD & WOLMAN (1953–1957) 40

V POSTCARDS, CARVINGS AND MINIMAL INTERVENTIONS (1959–1965) 49

VI MAURICE LEMAÎTRE, UN SOIR AU CINÉMA, AU-DELÀ DU DÉCLIC & OTHER INNOVATIVE USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY, (1962–1967) 63

Maurice Lemaître in chiselled, lettrist and hypergraphic, infinitesimal and supertemporal photography (1965), Isidore Isou 65

VII SECOND INTERNATIONAL LETTRIST MOVEMENT: BRAU & WOLMAN (1963–1970) 87

VIII A NEW GENERATION: ROLAND SABATIER, ALAIN SATIÉ & FRANÇOIS POYET (1964–1967) 102

IX MAURICE LEMAÎTRE, THE COLBERT SLIDES (1967) 115

X PHOTOGRAPHY AS A DOCUMENT (1965–1968) 120

B
FIRST EXHIBITIONS OF LETTRIST PHOTOGRAPHS (1968–1973)
Frédéric Acquaviva

XI GALLERY OF THE MAISON DE LA CULTURE IN THE 5TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS (1968) 127

The Club photographique de Paris (“Les 30x40”) and the Lettrist mouvement present: The exhibition of chiselling, hypergraphic, infinitesimal and supertemporal photography (1968), Isidore Isou 131

New aesthetic and eco-aesthetic considerations on the
photography of the Lettrist movement (1968), Isidore Isou 133

XII GALERIE FISCHBACHER, PARIS (1971) 166

XIII CENTRE INTERNATIONAL DE SÉJOUR, PARIS (1973) 194

*Lettrist photography. An interview with Isidore Isou by Jean-Claude Gautrand (1974) *216

C
DEVELOPMENTS IN LETTRIST PHOTOGRAPHY (1970-2013)
Frédéric Acquaviva

XIV THE WOLMAN CASE (1970–1993) 221

XI ISIDORE ISOU (1977–2005) 234

XVI MAURICE LEMAÎTRE (1980–2013) 248

What is photography? (2002), Maurice Lemaître 269

Preface to (Erotic?) Lettrist photos (2003), Maurice Lemaître 272

XVII THE LETTRISTS: JEAN-PAUL CURTAY, BROUTIN, FRÉDÉRIQUE DEVAUX …(1974–2013) 273

Interview with Frédérique Devaux by Frédéric Acquaviva, June 2024 320

Bibliography and list of exhibitions of Lettrist photography 334

Colophon 336