François Righi:
Le Miroir Volatil

Remarks on the author: “Under the gaze of the green Osiris, Robert Marteau poetically officiates and opens.” This is how Jean-François Rollin expresses himself in his introduction to the poems in Kingdoms, Works on the Earth, and Sibyls. Robert Marteau indeed writes from life. Born “into a world of secrets,” he has not lost his sense of reality, that is to say, of myth. On March 24, 2000, he honored me by visiting the Hôtel Lallemant in Bourges with me. On the train back to Paris, Robert wrote to me, and the next day I received a sonnet that sealed this occasion. From this sprang the impetus that led us, hand in hand , to the book we have today. Mano a mano (hand to hand) is an expression from the bullfighting vocabulary designating a bullfight in which only two maestros participate, who must have different styles.

Extract from the colophon: “The emblems found on the ceiling of the oratory of the Hôtel Lallemant in Bourges, transcribed by François Righi using a spherical mirror made by Jean Laborde, form the basis of the sequence of images engraved here, for which each motto is the work of Robert Marteau.”

Ivoy-le-Pré, D’ailleurs-l’image , 2003; octavo (25 x 22.2 cm) of 32 pp., including 2 blank pages, sewn in the Chinese style, dust jacket printed on Japanese paper, slipcase. 12 etchings and 5 double-sided prints, 1 original drypoint on acetate, all printed by the artist. One folding plate (62 x 42 cm) in silkscreen (J.-M. Biardeau). Typographic composition in movable lead type by François Righi, printed by Émile Moreau on the presses of “l’Imprimerie des billets” in Henrichemont. 66 copies on Kawasaki Japanese paper, including 6 hors commerce, numbered and signed. Copy no. 1 is accompanied by the 12 engraved steel plates (private collection, Nançay).