The objective of this project has been to merge an art-related research project with a critical / creative writing practice. The project’s focal point is Feux Pâles, an exhibition produced by the agency ‘readymades belong to everyone®’ — a project of French artist Philippe Thomas (1951, Nice – 1995, Paris) — presented at the Musée d’art contemporain in Bordeaux from 7 December 1990 to 3 March 1991.
The thesis critically engages with the exhibition through the lens of the novel that inspires its name: Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Nabokov’s novel develops through its paratexts (foreword, commentary, index), a structure which this thesis applies to its analysis of the Feux Pâles exhibition catalogue. After a full translation from French to English (unofficial, by the student) of the catalogue's 11 essays and interviews, the paratextual spaces of the document were identified (a director’s foreword, a list of errata) then modified with new texts that apply narratological strategies common to both the artist and novelist (diegetic shifts, unreliable narration) and attempt to re-contextualize and criticize Feux Pâles within the narrative of the show.
The final product is a 1:1 replica of the catalogue, a formal decision inspired by Thomas’ comments on verisimilitude: to ‘stick as closely as possible to reality’ when adding fiction to it. Even if the final work resembles the exhibition catalogue in appearance, it has, arguably, more in common with the novel: a fiction written in paratexts that grafts itself onto (and potentially disrupts) the text it serves.