"LOCUS SOLUS OR BIS REPETITA PLACENT", IN RAYMOND ROUSSEL, N° 1, "NEW CRITICAL IMPRESSIONS", LETTRES MODERNES MINARD, PARIS-CAEN, 2000, PP. 75-91.
See the Raymond Roussel series on the Minard editions website:
Raymond Roussel: new critical impressions
Article appearing in: HB, Literature and its Golem, vol. 1, Paris, Honoré Champion, 1996, p. 227-240.
Read Raymond Roussel, Locus Solus in image mode or text mode on Gallica:
Locus Solus / Raymond Roussel | Gallica (bnf.fr)
See the page of the exhibition "NEW IMPRESSIONS OF RAYMOND ROUSSEL from 02/24/2013 TO 05/19/2013":
NEW IMPRESSIONS OF RAYMOND ROUSSEL
FROM 02/24/2013 TO 05/19/2013
Under the auspices of the eccentric and fascinating figure of Raymond Roussel (1877-1933), the Palais de Tokyo hosts an ambitious exhibition that maps the influence of this dazzling genius on today's artists.
With: Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Jean-Michel Alberola, Jean-Christophe Averty, Zbynek Baladrán, Thomas Bayrle, Jacques Carelman, Guy de Cointet, Collège dePataphysique, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí, Gabriele Di Matteo, Thea Djordjadze, Marcel Duchamp, Giuseppe Gabellone, Rodney Graham, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Mike Kelley, Revue Locus Solus, Pierre Loti, Sabine Macher, Man Ray, Mark Manders, André Maranha, Pedro Morais, Jorge Queiroz et Francisco Tropa, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Victorien Sardou, Joe Scanlan, Jean Tinguely, Jules Verne.
"My soul is a strange factory" Raymond Roussel
Raymond Roussel is finally celebrated in Paris. It's well-deserved justice, albeit late, for this writer who has held a central place in the imagination of artists for a century — of only a few, but not the least — embodying the figure of the artist entirely dedicated, to the borders of reason, to his work, that of the artist creator of a "complete world", "following only the slope of his imagination" (André Breton). The "New Impressions of Raymond Roussel" are a continuation and complement to the exhibition "Impressions of Raymond Roussel", which took place at the Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid) in 2011 and at the Museu Serralves (Porto) in 2012. There was traced a diagonal history of 20th century art, connecting the points between artists and creators who have spoken of the influence of this author, of his writings, on their work. Starting with Marcel Duchamp, then the surrealists, but also Michel Foucault or Georges Perec. These "New Impressions of Raymond Roussel" this time propose to leave a larger place to today and bring together artists encountered during these recent years of research around Roussel. It did not seem necessary that their relationship to this writer take the form of a tribute, or even refer to it explicitly. It would be underestimating the nature of these influences, as deep as they are underground, to reduce them to citation games. These works are not reducible to a theme and their reunion here is an exercise in unfolding the motifs — always different — that artists have drawn from Roussel, consciously or not, according to a reading whose partiality must be assumed. It is indeed the "greatest magnetizer of modern times", according to André Breton, that this exhibition comes to remind memories; the one who, for Michel Leiris, achieved "the escape from the domain of Reality to that of Conception". This is to say the power of poetry, its ability to pass into an "upside-down world"; this vast theater, childish and sometimes cruel, that is Raymond Roussel's universe.
For the record: the Mélusine journal, n° 6, "Raymond Roussel in Glory", directed by Anne-Marie Amiot, and my contribution n° 55: "Happy Mistake: Raymond Roussel and the Surrealists", Mélusine n° 6, 1984, pp. 41-59.