The second volume in the series Jean-Francois Lyotard Writings on Contemporary Art and Artists introduces forty-two poetical reflections and comments on the work of the well-known Californian painter Sam Francis (1923 1994). This new edition reprints the English text, which is no longer available, with the previously unpublished French original on facing pages. In Lyotard's opinion Sam Francis's work "pays homage to the visible marvel and bears witness to the visual enigma." Color evokes conflicting feelings in the artist: ." . . color says to me: 'Come, I am your consolation, I cure your...

Lyotard met Jacques Monory in 1972, and the text on him published at that time was the first that Lyotard dedicated to contemporary art since Discourse, Figure. Lyotard's interest in the plastic arts thus fits fully within the setting of his political preoccupations. The artist-protagonist stages the recurring motifs that fascinate Lyotard: the scene of the crime, the revolver, the woman, the victim, glaciers, deserts, stars. The atmosphere of the essays on Monory is "Californian." Monory's imaginary repertoire goes well beyond the masters of modernity and is in line rather with a "modern...