Preface

In celebration of Chris Marker‘s 100th birthday, Chunking Books dedicates this first catalog to Chris Marker‘s incredibly vast and diverse body of work, ranging from his earliest poems to his multimedia installations, with the inclusion of some of his distinguished companions. The title of this catalog, Mosquito Bytes Cause Malaria, is taken from an unrealzied film project that Marker announced in a press kit for Sans Soleil.

Widely regarded as one of the most innovative and influential political filmmakers in modern film history, Chris Marker was born, if any information about Chris Marker can be trusted, as Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, and died on his birthday in 2012.

It is certainly not easy to describe Chris Marker and his work in a few sentences, but in my opinion Roger Tailleur succeeded best in his essay Markeriana, which I would like to quote here:

„It’s simple: Chris Marker is a writer/image-hunter, a contemplative traveller, a world citizen who expresses himself in French, a revolutionary prophet, a dreamer- poet, a serious humourist, a humanist member of the Society for Protection of Animals, a musical documentarian, a dialectical idealist. Alain Resnais was right the day he remarked that cinema, to which Marker eventually devoted himself, had snagged itself a rich acquisition. So many mixed-up tendencies – enough to worry the critic who has the task of encompassing them all.“

With each catalog, Chunking Books presents a particular perspective on a new topic through rare books and ephemera, with an emphasis on the 20th century avant-garde, art and cultural theory, cinema, social and political activism, artists‘ books, ephemera, and archival material.

I hope you enjoy the first catalog as much as I do, and feel free to get in contact at info@chunkingbooks.com.

Sören Schuhmacher