TO BE PUBLISHED on 1 September 2025
(You can already reserve your copy. To do so, please write to us)

ISBN 978-2-917246-17-7, 20 x 27 cm, 116 p., 45 euros

Limited edition of 99 numbered copies, signed by the artist.
Preface by Stefan Prince (English/French)

Hardcover, sewn binding, four-colour process inside on 150g matt coated paper with inserted endpapers, red head and foot headband.

The first 30 copies are enriched with a reproduction of an unpublished drawing by Rajah Foo: Une pluie noire. Signed by the artist and printed on 300g Rives laid paper.

Pour voir cette page en français, merci de cliquer ici

 

The ‘Les Visages d’Eros’ collection is dedicated to contemporary erotic art. Artist Rajah Foo opens the ball with this collection entitled Hôtel de la Providence. Comprising seventy completely new drawings, this monograph is the first book devoted exclusively to his work. It is published in a limited edition of just 99 copies, all numbered and signed by Rajah Foo himself. A unique opportunity to discover his world. The book is prefaced by the British painter Stefan Prince (bilingual English/French preface).

Let’s let Rajah Foo introduce himself: ‘As a student at the Beaux-Arts in Nancy in the late 1980s, I produced my first pornographic objects there, accompanied by Georges Bataille, Pauline Réage (Dominique Aury was unknown to me at the time), Pierre Klossowski, Sade, Bellmer, Max Ernst, Charles Fourier, Pierre Molinier… All this gave me the appearance of an offbeat person, not very approachable and far removed from the artistic concerns of the moment. And that suited me in the end.

A few years later, I was lucky enough to meet Hans-Jürgen Döpp, who commissioned illustrations from me for Histoire de l’œil, and later published some drawings in the book Orgien published in 2007 (Area).

My work explores the notion of desire, an archaic impulse, an intoxication, a radiant fury/folia. The colours I choose and the type of line I use have no other purpose than this exploration. In an early interview, David Lynch described himself as staring at a wall, letting the image he was trying to reproduce come to him. I don’t know if my memory misrepresents what he was saying, but the composition of my drawings is most often a rambling, a walk through a mental forest, where the images of my love life and my reading live on. Forests are a refuge for lovers, the Tarot Garden (Niki de Saint Phalle) a sunny place to find yourself, and Max Ernst’s collages a key to grasping the opacity of this desire. What a profound pleasure it was when the woman I love offered me a reprint of Une semaine de bonté from Jean-Jacques Pauvert. It was under her auspices that, suspended over my sheet of paper, I wondered how to materialise the sense of urgency generated by the image and the whispers that haunt me. I like drawing in our bedroom. I think a studio would be an inappropriate place for my work. In this, I understand Molinier.

During a visit to the Musée de l’Érotisme in Paris, Hans-Jürgen Döpp introduced me to Émilie Dujat, who in 2008 showed some of my drawings in her Galerie Libertine in Brussels. She herself commissioned an erotic porcelain dinner service for one of her art-loving acquaintances.

Stefan Prince, an erudite painter who has an intimate relationship with Histoire d’O, devoted a fine self-publication to me with Blur. His way of reading my work, of digging into it, echoes my Bataille readings. It was a joy!

Later, coming across the fine work of Jessica Rispal, she published some of my drawings in her magazine Le Bateau. She also wrote an Crocs électriques for me, which earned me a place among the artists exhibited at the Arts Factory gallery in Paris in 2020. Shortly afterwards, I took part in the La Squaw (Images cachées – Images devinettes) issue by poet and painter Michel Lascault.

This year, thanks to the work of Pierre-Alexis Deschamps, a soaked drawing now floats on some of Les Plus Beaux Mouchoirs de Paris. During the visit we paid him, I visited his studio and met Pat Andrea, Stu Mead, Anne Mathurin, Patrick Jannin, Reinhard Scheibner and so many other abominable artists in his handkerchiefs. I’ll have to go back. It’s a mine.

Hôtel de la Providence is certainly the most ambitious publication I’ve ever seen.’

Publications and exhibitions by Rajah Foo:

2007 Orgien (collective), Hans-Jürgen Döpp, éditions Area
2008 Exhibition Happy Valentine Libertine! Alexandre Pavlenko, Violeta Caldes and Rajah Foo, galerie Émilie Dujat, Bruxelles
2018 Le Jardin des délices (Les Crocs électriques n° 119)
2018-2019-2020 Le Bateau n° 14, 16 et 17 (collective)
2019 La Squaw (Images cachées – Images devinettes) (collective), éditions parisiennes Michel Lascault
2020 Les Crocs électriques group show, Arts Factory gallery, Paris
2021 The Chained Faun (collective), Portugal
2022 Éros mécanique n°8 (Japon theme), Hector Domiane
2022 Eroticamente explicito (cover and back cover), Gabriele Conti, éditions Dunken, Argentina

Links:

Rajah Foo : https://rajahfoo.wixsite.com/rajahfoo
Stefan Prince : https://www.storyofo.info