In addition to his portraiture and his photographic work, the French artist Hervé Guibert was widely known as an acclaimed critic and writer, among others for the influential volumes L’image fantome (Ghost Image) (1981) and À l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie (To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life) (1990). Probing different genres through an extensive body of novels, essays, and autobiographical writings, Guibert explored the permeating lines between photography and text while also expanding them.

To coincide with the Berlin CSD celebration, KW is devoting a night to Guibert’s written work as seen through the eyes of contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers. Coming from different fields of thought, the participants approach Guibert’s writing while also opening it by relating it to their own practice and interpretation.

Invited guests

Andrew Durbin

Andrew Durbin is the author of MacArthur Park (2017) and Skyland (2020), both from Nightboat Books. In 2018, MacArthur Park was a finalist for the Believer Book Award. He is the editor of Jacolby Satterwhite’s How lovely is me being as I am (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2021), Kevin Killian’s Fascination: Memoirs (Semiotexte, 2018), and the chapbook series Say bye to reason and hi to everything (Capricious, 2015). His fiction, criticism, and poetry have appeared in The Believer, BOMB, Boston Review, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, The Paris Review, Triple Canopy, and elsewhere. He is currently writing a biography of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek. He lives in London and is the editor-in-chief of frieze magazine.

Nat Marcus

Nat Marcus (*1993, New York City) is a poet, designer, DJ and co-editor of TABLOID Press, a publishing house and media imprint founded in Berlin in 2014. Her poetry, art criticism and lyric journalism have recently appeared in Arts of the Working Class, The Ransom Note, and Edit.

Marcus has participated in poetry readings and performances in a variety of venues across Europe and the US, and in the last years has exhibited visual works at Mint (Stockholm, SE), Kunstverein München (Munich, DE) and Felix Gaudlitz (Vienna, AT). She holds a residency at the Berlin-based radio station Refuge Worldwide, and as a vocalist has collaborated with musical artists such as Ulla Straus, exael, Perila and Soho Rezanejad. Aside from the collections of silkscreened clothing Marcus designs and releases under the TABLOID imprint, she has produced graphics for numerous record labels including Uzuri, West Mineral Ltd., 3XL, Ediciones Capablanca and Lillerne Tapes.

Bassem Saad

Bassem Saad is an artist and writer born in Beirut. Their work explores notions of historical rupture, spontaneity, and surplus, through film, performance, and sculpture, alongside essays and fiction. With an emphasis on past and present forms of struggle, they attempt to place scenes of intersubjective exchange within their world-historical frames.

They are currently a fellow at the Berlin Program for Artists. Their writing appears in The New Inquiry, Jadaliyya, FailedArchitecture, and The Funambulist.