Klossowski Born in Paris,Pierre Klossowski was the older brother of the artist Balthazar Klossowski,better known as Balthus.When he was 18,Klossowski was André Gide's secretary and worked on the drafts of Les faux-monnayeurs for him.

Klossowski wrote full length volumes on the Marquis de Sade and Friedrich Nietzsche,a number of essays on literary and philosophical figures,and five novels.He translated several important texts (by Virgil,Ludwig Wittgenstein,Martin Heidegger,Friedrich H?lderlin,Franz Kafka,Nietzsche,and Walter Benjamin) into French,worked on films and was also an artist,illustrating many of the scenes from his novels.Klossowski participated in most issues of George Bataille's review,Acéphale,in the late 1930s.

Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001) was a significant and influential philosopher,writer,translator and artist who befriended Georges Bataille and formulated an original stance on many theological issues and the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade.His first novel,Roberte,ce Soir,appeared in 1954 as a limited edition containing six of his own erotic illustrations,after he rejected drawings by his younger brother,the painter Balthus.Following the encouragement of Robert Lebel,Andre Masson and Alberto Giacometti he held his first exhibition in Paris in 1956 and subsequently produced numerous life-size drawings of erotic scenes imbued with mythological,allegorical,and philosophical connotations.By the 1970s,his art had won the acclaim of such eminent thinkers as Maurice Blanchot,Michel Butor,Gilles Deleuze,Michel Foucault and Felix Guattari.

This comprehensive monograph,containing new research by leading specialists Alyce Mahon,Catherine Millet,Anthony Spira and Sarah Wilson,and including a detailed biography by Kathleen Brunner,focuses on Klossowski's artistic oeuvre.

introduction

Iwona Blazwick and Kasper Konig

pierre klossowski: epiphanies and secrets

Sarah Wilson

the sadean imagination: pierre klossowski

and the'vicious circle'

Alyce Mahon

klossowski our neighbour

Catherine Millet

a pantomime of spirits

Anthony Spira

plates

list of works

chronology

bibliography

acknowledgements