Alain Fleischer's Mummy, mummies Explores Corpse Preservation in Umbria

Alain Fleischer's book Mummy, mummies, published by Éditions Verdier, combines photography and text to examine mummified bodies discovered in the soil of an Umbrian village, whose chemical composition naturally preserves corpses. The work opens with striking cover and interior images that initially evoke morbid sculptures or human monsters from a horror museum, but are revealed as actual mummies. Fleischer, known for his imaginative novels and visual artistry, presents four short texts blending essay and fiction. He draws parallels between photography and the mummies of Palermo's catacombs, describing the catacombs as an "obscure laboratory" and mummies as "photographic images revealed but not fixed." The book includes a narrative with Bataillean themes of storm, death, sex, and incest, followed by autobiographical snapshots. Fleischer writes, "the mummy (...) is maternal," and reflects on the relationship between photography and these preserved bodies. A hunchback eternally holds his penis; beautiful Katerina forever displays her sex. The work questions whether all this is merely "the noisy surface of a silent mystery." Jacques Henric reviewed the book for artpress.