Pierre Klossowski

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pierre Klossowski (born August 9, 1905 in Paris ; † August 12, 2001 ) was a French writer , translator and painter .

Pierre Klossowski wrote numerous essays, including on Marquis de Sade and Friedrich Nietzsche , several essays on literary and philosophical concepts and five short stories. With his writings he had a lasting influence on French thinkers such as Jean-François Lyotard , Jacques Derrida , Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault . He is the older brother of the painter Balthazar Klossowski, better known as Balthus . Klossowski translated numerous works from German and Latin into French, worked on several films and illustrated numerous scenes of his works as a painter. In the late 1930s he contributed to most issues of Georges Bataille's magazine Acéphale .

Life

Pierre Klossowski was born in Paris in 1905. His father Erich's family immigrated from East Prussia in the middle of the 19th century, while his mother Elisabeth Dorothea Spiro ("Baladine") was a painter and came from Breslau . His brother Balthazar, who later became famous as the painter "Balthus", was born in 1908. After the outbreak of the First World War, the family was expelled from the country and their property confiscated. They first traveled to Zurich and finally settled in Berlin . The couple separated in 1917, the mother and sons first moved to Bern and then to Geneva . In 1920 she began an intimate relationship with Rainer Maria Rilke , who in a way became the sons' surrogate father. Rilke got Pierre Klossowski a position as secretary with André Gide in Paris, which he took up in 1923. Gide also became a kind of father figure to him. In 1924 the mother Baladine and the brother Balthus moved to Paris to live with Pierre Klossowski. Rilke died at the end of 1926; Pierre Jean Jouve took his place as mentor , and Pierre Klossowski became friends with Jean Cocteau .

Pierre Klossowski began his literary work in 1930 with a translation of Hölderlin poems and the translation of Franz Kafka's The Trial . In 1933 he attended Alexandre Kojève's Hegel seminars , together with Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan , Raymond Aron and André Breton . In 1936 he was the first to translate Walter Benjamin's essay The Artwork in the Age of Technical Reproducibility . He also translated Max Scheler's Vom Sinn des Suffering and Robespierre by Friedrich Sieburg . Klossowski joined the secret group Acéphale von Bataille, Georges Ambrosino and André Masson and began to write articles for the magazine of the same name.

In the winter of 1939/1940 Klossowski went through a religious crisis. He went to Lyon , where he was preparing to become a monk. He first joined the Benedictines , then the Dominicans . In 1941 he separated from the Dominicans and returned to Lyon. In 1943 he returned to Paris and met again with Bataille and Lacan. In 1944 he joined the Dieu Vivant group , which also included Maurice Blanchot , Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre . A year later he temporarily converted to Protestantism before becoming a Catholic priest in 1946. In the same year he met the 28-year-old widow and resistance fighter Denise Marie Roberte Morin-Sinclaire, whom he married on July 31, 1947. She gave birth to their two children, Frédérique and Jean Charles. In 1947 Klossowski's first book, Sade, mon prochain was published . In 1949 his father died.

In 1950 Klossowski published his novel La vocation suspendue , in which his religious conflicts can be found again. The following year, his friend and mentor André Gide died. After Gallimard had refused to publish Roberte, ce soir , Klossowski was able to place the novel at Éditions de Minuit in 1952. In 1955 he showed six charcoal drawings in a private setting in Paris and he published Le bain de Diane ou la proie pour l'ombre . In 1957 he gave up drawing for the time being and concentrated on writing. He completed his Roberte trilogy, published essays and translations. The second part of the trilogy, La révocation de l'édit de Nantes , appeared in 1959, the third part, Le souffleur ou le théâtre de société , in 1960.

In 1961 André Malraux appointed Balthus director of the Académie de France in Rome, where Pierre Klossowski visited him several times. In 1965 he and his wife moved into an apartment in Paris, where the couple lived until he died. Les lois de l'hospitalité was reprinted as a trilogy, but the order was rearranged so that Roberte, ce soir came in the middle. He published the novel Le Baphomet , which is dedicated to Michel Foucault and for which he received the Prix ​​de la Critique . In 1966 he had a supporting role as a stingy grain dealer in Robert Bresson's classic film For example Balthasar . In 1967 Klossowski's first public exhibition took place in the Parisian gallery Le Cadran Solaire . In 1968 he signed a manifesto in support of the student revolt with Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Lacan . Gilles Deleuze referred in his works Difference and Repetition and Logic of Meaning to Klossowski's lecture on Nietzsche. Klossowski's book Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux , published in 1969 and dedicated to Deleuze, contains Nietzsche lectures and strongly influenced contemporary thinkers. Foucault described it as the “most important philosophical work that I - including Nietzsche - have read.” In September 1969, Klossowski's mother Baladine died.

The 1970s were mainly characterized by drawing and his work on film. He worked with director Pierre Zucca on a luxury edition of La monnaie vivante in 1970 , a collaboration that culminated in Zucca's films Roberte (1978) Roberte interdite (1979). The television productions La vocation suspendue and L'Hypothèse du Tableau volé by Raoul Ruiz as well as exhibitions in Paris , Milan , Turin and Antwerp also fall during this period . Jean-François Lyotard's Économie libidinale (1974) and Gilles Deleuzes and Félix Guattaris L'Anti-Oedipe: capitalisme et schizophrénie (1972) refer to Klossowski's writings.

In the 1980s, Klossowski's drawings were shown in numerous exhibitions, for example in Paris, Bern , Kassel , Nice , Zurich , New York , Nantes , Tokyo and Cologne . Theater troupes put on plays: Roberte, ce coir , which Klossowski disliked, and Le bain de Diane . Essays and special editions about Klossowski were published. Helmut Newton photographed the Klossowski couple in the role of Roberte. In 1987, Klossowski published Roberte et Gulliver suivi de fragments d'une lettre à Michel Butor .

From 1990 numerous other exhibitions took place in which Klossowski also showed sculptures. In 1994 L'adolescent immortel was published. Klossowski gave up drawing due to his deteriorating eyesight. In 1995 and 1996 international Klossowski Conferences took place in Vienna and Geneva, in which the couple Klossowski took part. In 1998 Pierre Klossowski suffered two strokes that led to complete blindness. Pierre Klossowski died on August 12, 2001 and was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.

Works (selection)

  • Sade, mon prochain . Seuil, Paris 1947 (extended NA: ibid. 1967)
    • German: Sade, my neighbor , with the nefarious philosopher. Translated by Gabriele Ricke, Ronald Voullié and Marion Luckow. Passagen Verlag , Vienna 1996 ISBN 3-85165200-2 .
  • La vocation suspendue. Gallimard , Paris 1950-
  • Le Bain de Diane. Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Paris 1956.
    • English: The bath of Diana. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1970 (again: Brinkmann & Bose, Berlin 1982).
  • Un si funeste désir. ibid. 1963.
  • Les Lois de l'hospitalité - La Révocation de l'Édit de Nantes / Roberte ce soir / Le Souffleur . 1959, 1953, 1960 ( Roberte included twice as graphic motif in the German edition of La ressemblance , see below), Gallimard, Paris 1965.
    • German: The Laws of Hospitality. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1966 (again: Kadmos, Berlin 2002).
    • Roberte Ce Soir and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Dalkey Archives, 2002 ISBN 1-56478-309-X .
  • Le Baphomet. Mercure de France , Paris 1965
    • German: Der Baphomet. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1968
  • Justine and Juliette . Preface to Donatien Alphonse François de Sade: Œuvres complètes, vol. 6. Cercle du livre, Paris 1966.
    • German: Justine and Juliette. In: Reading on de Sade. Ed. And transl. Bernhard Dieckmann, François Pescatore. Stroemfeld - Roter Stern, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-87877163-0 , pp. 49-60.
  • L'androgyne in the representation sadienne. Tel Quel , № 18. Du Seuil, Paris 1967.
    • German: The androgynous in the sadianic representation. In: Reading on de Sade , pp. 111–114.
  • Origines cultuelles et mythiques d'un certain comportement des dames romaines. Editions Fata Morgana, Montpellier 1968.
    • English: Cultic and mythical origins of certain customs of Roman ladies. Merve, Berlin 1979, ISBN 978-3-88396-005-0 .
  • Nietzsche et le cercle vicieux. Mercure de France, Paris 1969.
    • English: Nietzsche and the Circulus vitiosus deus. Epilogue Gerd Bergfleth. Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-88221-231-4 .
  • La Monnaie Vivante. Eric Losfeld, Paris 1970.
    • German: Living Money. Bremen 1982. (New translation: The living coin , Kadmos 1998)
  • Sade et Fourier . In Les derniers travaux de Gulliver suivi de Sade et Fourier. Fata morgane, Montpellier 1974, pp. 33-77.
    • German: Sade and Fourier. In: Reading on de Sade, pp. 213–234.
  • La Ressemblance. Editions Ryôan-ji, Marseille 1984.
    • German: The similarity. Gachnang & Springer, Bern 1986, ISBN 3-906127-11-7 . (In it colored graphics by Klossowski: Milady et le bourreau de Lille 1972, Gulliver marchandant avec Roberte (1980), Roberte ce soir. Seconde version (1984). And a b / w graphic: Grande Esquisse pour “Les barres parallèles” (1975 ))
  • Écrits d'un monomane. Essais 1933-1939. Gallimard, Paris 2001.
  • Tableaux vivants. Essais critiques 1936-1983. Gallimard, Paris 2001.
  • L'adolescent immortel. Gallimard, Paris 2001.
  • Divertimento for Gilles Deleuze . Merve Verlag , Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-88396-206-1 .
  • Under the dictation of the picture. An interview with Rémy Zaugg . Turia & Kant, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85132-546-1 .

Translations (selection)

Klossowski translated Virgil , Suetonius , Augustine and Tertullian from Latin. From the German he translated Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Sören Kierkegaard , Hölderlin , Franz Kafka , Nietzsche, Max Scheler, Otto Flake , Johann Georg Hamann, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Paul Klee , Li-Yu, Rainer Maria Rilke , Lou Andreas-Salomé and Walter Benjamin into French.

literature

  • Pierre Klossowski or The Language of the Body. Marginalia on "The Laws of Hospitality". Contributions by Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Maurice Blanchot, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Michel Butor, Georges Bataille, Maurice Nadeau, Marion Luckow. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1966. (NA: Merve, Berlin 1979)
  • Pierre Klossowski , Cahiers pour un temps - Editions du Center Pompidou , Paris 1985.
  • Ian James: Pierre Klossowski. The Persistence of a Name. Legenda 1999.
  • Leslie Hill: Bataille, Klossowski, Blanchot . Writing at the limit. Oxford University Press , 2001.
  • A. Marroni: Klossowski e la comunicazione artistica. Centro Internazionale Studi di Estetica, 39, Palermo 1993.
  • Gabriele Sorgo: Gnosis and Lust. On the mythology of Pierre Klossowski. Turia & Kant, Vienna 1994.
  • A. Marroni: Pierre Klossowski. Sessualità, vizio e complotto nella filosofia. Costa & Nolan, Milan 1999, ISBN 9788876483837 .
  • A. Marroni: Laws of perversion and hospitality in Pierre Klossowski. In: Journal of European Psychoanalysis, 25, 2007.
  • A. Marroni, L'arte dei simulacri. Il dèmone estetico di Pierre Klossowski. Costa & Nolan, Milan 2009, ISBN 9788874371242 .
  • Walter Seitter : Multiple existences: El Greco, Empress Elisabeth, Pierre Klossowski. Special number, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85449-207-3 .
  • Thierry Tremblay: Anamneses. Essai sur l'œuvre de Pierre Klossowski. Hermann, 2012, ISBN 978-2-70568277-4 .
  • Jonas Hock: Confession and Ambiguity. Pierre Klossowski's early work. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6878-4 .

theatre

  • Pierre Klossowski - Living Money. World premiere: Berlin 2008. Production: Christian Bertram

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ after the 1967 edition
  2. ↑ Online see web links
personal data
SURNAME Klossowski, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer, translator and painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 2001