Poutresse is a work of art in motion, conceived within the sacred precincts of Hand Art Publishers. It is architectural, built up of images, erudition and fantasy. Inspired by the printmaking methods of the 16th century, Poutresse comprises nine inter- twining books. At the heart of the work the reader finds a text in the form of a play, Poutresse . Here a story unfolds about termites who are devouring the inscribed beams in Montaigne’s château while a censor tries to preserve them from destruction/ erasure. How do the termites regurgitate knowledge? This is the project: Poutresse is staging the life of the artist Jérôme Karsenti. What pushes the artist to perform them- selves as text is the fact of his birth out of nothingness (Né ANT ), his innate sense of being haunted (né hanté) and it is in speaking of these moments of fear, anguish and emotion, that he creates a new direction for the book, and finds its eventual form.

In the age of digital transmission of knowledge, what remains of the humanist experience? What do we remember? Through which biases is knowledge diffused, and how is it perpetuated? Jérôme Karsenti, like a seismograph, (dis)locates inquiries into knowledge, how it is accessed and digested. Poutresse is a sculptural object that dances between the hands of the reader who is invited to manipulate it, exploring the foundations of a polyphonic and unique poetic language created by the author. Unfolding pages full of visual surprises, the reader slips into a meandering and subtle search of self, a questioning of one's perception of the world and the creation of an open-ended work of art. 

« Poutresse,here it is, Poutresse, in my hands. This is the story of my love for an extraordinary woman. It is nine books, a world in itself, nine works made of flesh and muscle, nine organs of life, all intertwined. The text could only be finished after a process of actually making the book. This is so different from how publishing is done nowadays. There are authors who can’t find publishers, who have manuscripts abandoned and unfinished in a drawer because no one can offer them an original form which would give life to their creation and bring it out to the public. It’s this process of putting the words into muscle and flesh that is at work here. The book is dead, long live the book! I’ve freed myself from certain rules, reconnecting with the very first printers and their experimentation and inventiveness, at least as I imagine it. From this I built a body of a man, my own body, in its totality, able to seduce and communicate with this woman, DB, with such a particular language, a creature who lives to the rhythm of Montaigne: a woman half-plant, half-animal. I faced my fears and became a termite in the beams of Montaigne’s château, digesting knowledge and transforming it in my own way. I return from this journey, still in the amber of creation with Poutresse . »œuvre ici. Le livre est mort, vive le livre ! Je me suis affranchi de certaines règles pour renouer avec l’inventivité expérimentale des premiers imprimeurs, du moins telle que je la fantasme, et par là même, construire un corps d’homme, le miens total, et être à même de séduire, communiquer avec cette femme DB, au langage si particulier, creature who lives to the rhythm of Montaigne : a woman who is half-plant, half-animal. I faced my fears, I became a termite in the beams of Montaigne's castle, to digest knowledge, and transform it in my own way. I return from this trip still in the amber of creation, Poutresse, and it's table of guests donated by Howard Carter."

Journal of Jérôme Karsenti. 2024

Printed by SYL in Barcelona