20 years ago, she scandalized with The sex life of Catherine M., a detailed account of his countless orgies and swinger parties. The incredible success of this daring book (more than 2 million copies sold!) should not make us forget that Catherine Millet was first a well-known art critic, co-founder in 1972 of the magazine Art Presswhich still exists.
Posted at 6:00 p.m.
If we underline it, it is because his professional beginnings are at the heart of Beginnings, his new autobiographical installment. Lovers of naughty evenings will be disappointed. The book contains its share of salacious anecdotes, but above all we discover how a young woman still green has built her critical sense, according to human and artistic encounters. Beginnings is also, for many, the chronicle of an environment and an era, namely the Parisian artistic avant-garde at the end of the 1960s. We can clearly understand the effervescence that animated the conceptual art scene at the time. This feeling of “everything is possible”, with May 68 as a backdrop.
But the Polaroid very quickly turns into a festival of name dropping, which only insiders will be able to appreciate at its fair value. The others will possibly be stunned by this avalanche of names of more or less well-known artists or gallery owners, which Catherine Millet’s cold style does not always manage to transcend, despite some literary flashes which confirm her true talent as a writer and some reflections lucid about this formative period of life.
Beginnings
Catherine Millet
flammarion
314 pages