Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret is a poet, writer, and critic of contemporary literature, art, and photography (see his contributions to *In de la Photographie*, *OpenEye*, *Le Littéraire*, *Turbulence Vidéo*, *Esprit*, *TK21*, etc.). He has published numerous books: poetry, short texts, and essays on art and literature, including "Extinctions," a work about Beckett published by Douro.
Faced with productivist or amateur photographers who leave the world as desolate as it is predictable, a few rare creators become irreplaceable. Adding to the image on one hand, diminishing reality on the other, these photographers, through their choices, avoid the game of blinding bursts of light. They hunt for shadow. For them, seeing less reveals more. And this is true in various fields: ethical, social, political, and aesthetic, where photography no longer copies reality: it transforms it. Gathered here are the creators who respond to Barthes's "Camera Lucida." In "The Dark Room," windows open onto dark and sharp territories. The photographers leave the work in black—but sometimes not without detours. Their visions never suggest collapses, but rather perspectives through new layers, leading to a different kind of beauty. Publication: June 2, 2025. Order Press Release
"Extinctions" presents Beckett's strategies for leading the individual to the point of their inability to exist and their emptiness. The realms of the body, like those of space and time, undergo—through fiction, poetry, film, television, and radio—everything that collapses, then fades and is extinguished by the power of the imagination. The essay, through its carefully chosen numbering, reveals Beckett's profoundly innovative and creative languages for expressing the exhaustion of meaning. The strategies of the imagination eliminate any illusory revelation. Two quotations are emblematic of this paradoxical work, poised between the impossibility of expression and erasure: from "In the beginning was the pun" to "Enough with the pictures," where only the music of silence in the dark remains. Publication date: September 1, 2024. Order Press release
The author becomes a sharp-witted observer of the supposed upheavals that punctuate the life of a hero whose legacy is cultivated even during his lifetime—which is far more invigorating. This author has found in his hero, without ever having met him, the perfect echo of Montaigne's revisited formula on friendship: "Because it was him, because it was me." In short, for Montaigne, Cauda remains the sole master. The greatest reverence due to him is his butchering. Publication date: January 2, 2022. Order now
