LETTRISM : ALAIN SATIE.COM

Introduction

Alain Satié was born on January 20, 1944 in Toulouse, France. After technical studies, he enrolled in the Fine Art school of Toulouse. Later, he established himself in Paris, where he joined the Lettrist movement in 1964. He soon became one of the central figures of Lettrism, both through his personal art works in many disciplines and through his activism on behalf of the movement.

Painter, writer, architect, photographer, poet and critic, Alain Satié is also a professor of art history at the University of Leonardo da Vinci. His specialty is the study of the specifics of the current avant-garde, seeking to clarify its confusing state.

In the visual arts, Alain Satié has explored an evolving collection of rigorous works that he continues to develop and enrich. His visual art is represented in numerous museums and private collections.

The ensemble of his work has been a topic of study in several doctoral theses, notably Marie-Hélène Mantbazet's Exposé sur les creations de Alain Satié (Study of the creations of Alain Satié) (1991), done in art history at the Sorbonne, and an article by Sami Sjöberg written in 2003, Alain Satien hypergrafiikaa teoksessa Écrit en prose (Alain Satié's hypergraphic work Écrit en prose) on Satié's hypergraphic novel Ecrit en Prose and published in his C'est silence maintenant.  La marque potentielle dans l'œuvre de Paul Klee, Henri Michaux et les lettristes (It is Silence Now: The Potential Sign in the works of Paul Klee, Henri Michaux and the Lettrists) (2006) in Finland ; then a collective work by Andri Gerber (Switzerland), Ilana Vardy (USA) and Patricia Byrs-Lasquier (France) in L'étude de la couleur et du clair-obscur dans trois œuvres du Caravage à la lumière d'une résurgeance contemporaine: une série lettriste d'Alain Satié, De l'indicible à la preuve (Study of color and chiaroscuro in three works by Caravaggio in the light of a contemporary resurgence : a lettrist series by Alain Satié, From the unutterable to the proof).

The introduction of a living artist cannot be complete, and Alain Satié is entirely capable of surprising us again with his possible and conceivable creations.

This site, in its present state, is only a framework that can at best reveal through its diversity and abundance some of the works and contributions that the artist has made. We will try to fill it out periodically by adding examples of completed works in the many disciplines the artist has worked in. Eventually, specific studies and precise developments are foreseen in order to fill out this general framework with clear and satisfying conclusions.