Nathalie Léger

Fiction. Translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer and Cecile Menon. "I believe there is a miracle in Wanda," wrote Marguerite Duras of the only film American actress Barbara Loden ever wrote and directed. "Usually, there is a distance between representation and text, subject and action. Here that distance is completely eradicated." It is perhaps this "miracle"--the seeming collapse of fiction and fact--that has made Wanda (1970) a subject of fascination for artists from Isabelle Huppert to Rachel Kushner to Kate Zambreno, and that set acclaimed French writer Nathalie Leger on an obsessive quest across continents, into archives, and through mining towns of Pennsylvania trying to get closer to the film and its maker. SUITE FOR BARBARA LODEN is the magnificent result. Moving contrapuntally between biography and auto-fiction, film criticism and anecdote, fact and speculation, SUITE FOR BARBARA LODEN is a stunning meditation on knowledge and self-knowledge, on the surfaces of life and art, and how we come to truth--a kind of truth--not through facts alone but through acts of the imagination.

Suite for Barbara Loden

Fiction. Performance Art. Biography. Memoir. THE WHITE DRESS is the third in Nathalie Léger's award-winning triptych of books about women who "through their oeuvre, transform their lives into a mystery" (ELLE). In EXPOSITION, Léger wrote about the Countess of Castiglione, the most photographed woman of the nineteenth century; in SUITE FOR BARBARA LODEN she took up the actress and filmmaker Barbara Loden; here, Léger grapples with the tragic 2008 death of Italian performance artist Pippa Bacca, who was raped and murdered while hiking from Italy to the Middle East in a wedding dress to promote world peace. A harrowing meditation on the risks women encounter, in life and in art, THE WHITE DRESS also brings to a haunting conclusion Léger's personal interrogation--sustained across all three books--of her relationship with her mother and the desire for justice in our lives.

The White Dress

Fiction. Art. Photography. Biography. Memoir. EXPOSITION is the first in a triptych of books by the award-winning writer and archivist Nathalie Léger that includes SUITE FOR BARBARA LODEN and THE WHITE DRESS. In each, Léger sets the story of a female artist against the background of her own life and research--an archivist's journey into the self, into the lives that history hides from us. Here, Léger's subject is the Countess of Castiglione (1837-1899), who at the dawn of photography dedicated herself to becoming the most photographed woman in the world, modeling for hundreds of photos, including "Scherzo di Follia," among the most famous in history. Set long before our own "selfie" age, EXPOSITION is a remarkably modern investigation into the curses of beauty, fame, vanity, and age, as well as the obsessive drive to control and commodify one's image.

Exposition

Sobre Barbara Loden

El vestido blanco

Este libro comienza con las siguientes palabras: “Avanzamos temblando”. Hay algo delicado, frágil y, al mismo tiempo, contundente en la escritura de Léger, que intenta responder si es posible contar la muerte de una persona amada. 

En la línea de libros como El año del pensamiento mágico de Joan Didion o Diario de duelo de Roland Barthes (de quien casualmente Léger era una de sus discípulas predilectas), En busca del cielo se atreve a habitar el hueso del dolor y la pérdida. “El espacio donde estás ya es inaccesible, ya no existes, cómo entender eso, ya no existes, grito”. A través de la escritura, aquello imposible de entender se condensa, se densifica, como si narrar esta muerte fuera la única manera que tiene Léger de integrarla a su vida. La autora de Sobre Barbara Loden logra escribir sobre el dolor con inusual belleza.

En Busca Del Cielo

The second in Nathalie Léger’s acclaimed genre-defying triptych of books about the struggles and obsessions of women artists. “I believe there is a miracle in Wanda,” wrote Marguerite Duras of the only film American actress Barbara Loden ever wrote and directed. “Usually, there is a distance between representation and text, subject and action. Here that distance is completely eradicated.” It is perhaps this “miracle”—the seeming collapse of fiction and fact—that has made Wanda (1970) a cult classic, and a fascination of artists from Isabelle Huppert to Rachel Kushner to Kate Zambreno. For acclaimed French writer Nathalie Léger, the mysteries of Wanda launched an obsessive quest across continents, into archives, and through mining towns of Pennsylvania, all to get closer to the film and its maker. Suite for Barbara Loden is the magnificent result.

"Elle voulait porter la paix dans les pays qui avaient connu la guerre. Elle pensait, disait-elle, faire régner l'harmonie par sa seule présence en robe de mariée. Ce n'est pas la grâce ou la bêtise de son intention qui m'a intéressée, c'est qu'elle ait voulu, par son geste, réparer quelque chose de démesuré et qu'elle n'y soit pas arrivée. Une robe blanche suffit-elle à racheter les souffrances du monde ? Sans doute pas plus que les mots ne peuvent rendre justice à une mère en larmes".

La robe blanche

Roland Barthes

Teatr Polski (Wrocław).

Kajetan Maria Jaksender

26 października 1977-15 września 1979

Dziennik żałobny

Célebre tanto por su ambición como por su belleza, la condesa de Castiglione, florentina afincada en el París de Napoleón III, se convirtió en una heroína de Italia. Amante del emperador, desempeñó un papel decisivo en la unificación italiana de 1861, aunque quizá su mayor legado fueron los más de setecientos retratos para los que posó en el estudio de Pierre-Louis Pierson a lo largo de su vida

La exposición

"Não podemos fotografar uma lembrança, mas podemos fotografar uma ruína." Em A exposição, a arquivista e escritora francesa Nathalie Léger apresenta a história de Virginia Oldoïni, a condessa de Castiglione. De origem italiana, foi considerada a mulher mais bela da Europa no final do século XIX e posou para centenas de retratos numa época em que a fotografia dava os primeiros passos. Em uma investigação sobre a beleza, a vaidade e a obsessão pela própria imagem, a narradora traça um perfil compassivo da condessa a partir dos registros que se tem dela até seu fim lamentável, isolada no apartamento em Paris.

A exposição

The French critic Roland Barthes has guru status among literary theorists. Yet his Journal of Mourning opens the door onto his strange personal world. A private diary, it records the day-by-day impact of bereavement as he struggles to live without the most important person in his life: his mother.

The Mourning Diary

Supplément à la vie de Barbara Loden

Il n'y a pas que la langue, il y a le style, il y a les chaussures.

Nathalie Léger

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