Éric Baudelaire: Anabases

Softcover | 17cm × 23cm | 302 pp

Archive Books | 2014 | 9783943620153

Anabases is a project initiated by the artist Éric Baudelaire. It was conceived as a conversation between his own practice and the research of the philosopher, Pierre Zaoui and the cinema theorist, Jean-Pierre Rehm. It revolves around the notion of ‘anabasis’, a term used to describe a period of ‘uncertain wandering and without guide’ through unknown lands that ends when one returns home. 

This book is not for reading but for wandering. Its lines do not roll out continuously but superimpose each other to infinity, creating not a compendium of knowledge but a web of prescience. It does not follow a logical framework but unfurls a grid with multiple entries. It does not assert a set subject or conclusive postulate. At most it invites us to probe the recesses of a mind in motion, and steeps us in the driving material that brings it to life. It reflects the works it exhibits, the documents it discloses and the commentary it generates: it aspires to ubiquity. Anabasis, the very real linking thread that stitches it together, serves not just as an archaeological enigma, but also as an allegorical force.

Éric Baudelaire is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris, France. After training as a political scientist, Baudelaire established himself as a visual artist with a research-based practice incorporating photography, printmaking and video. Since 2010, filmmaking has become central to his work. His feature films A Flower in the Mouth, Un film dramatique, Also Known as Jihadi, Letters to Max, The Ugly one and The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images have circulated widely in film festivals (including Locarno, Toronto, New York, FIDMarseille and Rotterdam). When shown within exhibitions, Baudelaire’s films are part of broad installations that include works on paper, performance, publications and public programs.