Blandine Solange's Posthumous Letter to Psychoanalyst Published by Grasset

Éditions Grasset has published a posthumous book by French artist Blandine Solange, who died by suicide on October 20, 2000. Born in 1957 and a student at the Beaux-Arts de Marseille, Solange wrote a letter in 1999 to psychoanalyst Georges Verdiani, whom she had intermittently consulted years earlier. In the letter, she rejects psychoanalysis, considering herself 'mad' (manic-depressive) and in need of psychiatry and chemotherapy. Her artistic practice involved approaching men in streets and cafés to draw them nude with erections. The book questions the boundary between art and madness, exploring whether her actions—walking naked in public, engaging in prostitution, swallowing an alarm clock battery—were 'acting out' or artistic performances. Solange viewed her existence as the realization of an artwork she could not make public; a website now presents her work. Verdiani contributes a cautious postface attempting to clarify her trajectory. The review by Jacques Henric warns against the book falling into the hands of authors of the 'Livre noir de la psychanalyse.'