French Literature Reviews - 2026
É. Watier, L'inventaire des destructions (New Expanded Edition)
Art and Visual Culture
L'inventaire des destructions
Revised and expanded edition
Éric Watier
Rennes, Éditions Incertain Sens, 2018
Published with the support of the Centre national des arts plastiques,
the Brittany Region, and the Occitanie Region.
[200] pages, perfect bound, black & white offset printing, 19 x 13.5 cm.
Legal deposit September 2018, 1,000 copies, ISBN 978-2-914291-86-6, €12.
In 2000, Éditions Incertain Sens published one of its very first artists' books: Éric Watier's L’Inventaire des destructions. The project inspired numerous subsequent publications: a postscript a year later, a reissue in the same artist's BLOC published by Éditions Zédélé, and translations by Boabooks, among others (in English, Portuguese, Japanese, etc.).
L’Inventaire des destructions presents, page by page, artists who have intentionally destroyed their own works. Evoked through brief, austere formulas—yet accompanied by the author's subtle commentary—each case of destruction questions the very essence of creation: Is it an object? A process? An attitude toward the world?
Eighteen years later, Éditions Incertain Sens is publishing a new version, expanded with one hundred new cases of intentional destruction gathered from a hundred additional artists. The resulting collection, representing nearly twenty years of research, is brought together in a volume designed to be vulnerable in its own right, lacking a cover or title page, and dedicating its final entry to its own presentation.
The practice of artistic destruction occupies a complex space within the history of conceptual art. By documenting instances where creators choose to eliminate their own output, this volume engages with questions regarding the status of the art object. It addresses whether art resides in the finished product, the creative process, or an attitude toward the world. Readers interested in the history of conceptual interventions and the tensions between creation and negation may find this collection relevant.
This work continues a tradition of the artist's book as a medium for archival and cataloging projects. The 2018 edition of L'inventaire des destructions by Éric Watier is expanded with one hundred new cases of intentional destruction. The volume is designed without a cover or title page, and it dedicates its final entry to its own presentation, reflecting nearly twenty years of research into the intersection of production and disappearance.