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  • Have you ever dreamed of being a little mouse hiding under a writer's desk, observing in secret the person working there? In the Oulipo@50 exhibit, of which this website is an online version, we have tried to simulate one of these writer's workshops with the help of all kind of archives: the Oulipian workshop.

    OULIPO ? What is this ? What is that ?
    What is OU ? What is LI ? What is PO ?
    OU is short for OUVROIR, in French, an atelier, workshop, or studio. What for? To make LI.
    LI is short for LITERATURE. What kind of LI? The LIPO.
    PO is short for POTENTIAL, which means a literature of endless supply, huge quantities of literature, produced potentially until the end of time, infinite in all practical senses.
    WHO ? In other words, who is responsible for this insane undertaking? Raymond Queneau, or RQ, one of the founding fathers, and Francois Le Lionnais, or FLL, co-father in crime, and the first president of the group, it's Pounding-Fresident.
    What do they do? the members of OULIPO (Calvino, Perec, Marcel Duchamp, and others, mathematicians and writers, writer-mathematicians and mathematician-writers) ? They work.
    Well, obviously, but at what ? To further the LIPO.
    Well obviously, but HOW ?
    By inventing constraints. New and old constraints, some difficult, others less diiffficult, others too diiffiicuuult.
    And an OULIPIAN writer, what's that ? It's, “a rat trying to escape from a labyrinth of his own making.”
    A labyrinth made of what ? Of words, sounds, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books, libraries, of prose, poetry and all that...

  • (Marcel Bénabou and Jacques Roubaud, « Qu'est-ce-que l'Oulipo? » )

  • Founded in November 1960, in the basement of a restaurant in the heart of the latin quarter, the group recently celebrated its 50th anniversary—testifying to a rare longevity in the history of avant-garde movements of the 20th century. The early years, kept under cover, were likewise those during which they elaborated their main ideas, like potentiality, freely imposed constraint, and the use in literature of structures appropriated from other domains, in particular from mathematics and games. These early years were also the time when the principles guiding the functioning of the group were put into place: monthly meetings, notifications and reply coupons, the taking of minutes and their archiving,
    the co-option of new members...
  • The 1970's-80's were years of expansion, both geographical and cultural : the group recruited several new young promising members, and among these, “foreign correspondents” (the Italian Italo Calvino, for example, and the American Harry Matthews) who did not fail to provide more proof in their books that constraint could be the basis of a masterpiece. Here we may see some copies of the many translations of La Disparition (A Void), Perec's famous book written with no « e » (1969), as well as his preparatory notes to the Vie Mode d'emploi (Life, a User's manual), a novel-universe written under the constraint, of the same Perec, of a vertiginous architecture. We can also see the way Oulipo experimented with the form of the book (the Cent mille milliards de poèmes) which inspired artists and illustrators (Cuchi White, Gaëlle Pélachaud, Massin).
  • Finally, in the 1980's up until today, there has been the development of writing workshops and Oulipo's emergence into the public arena. The work of Oulipo is starting to be known, especially in Italy and in the United States, where a certain number of poets making conceptual art have discovered the games of constraint in their own work. “Sister” groups are making appearances in other disciplines as well (the painting of OuPeinPo in 1980), and in other languages, (the Italian Oplepo in 1990).
  • It is impossible to summarize fifty years of history in a few items. I simply hope that this exhibit will inspire, in those of you who have never heard of Oulipo, a desire to discover these astonishing texts and to learn more. And for those of you who are already familiar with Oulipo, I hope it will illuminate its inner-workings, that which is found in those documents “on the side” of history, the ones that, when patched together, analyzed and commentated upon, may also make history.
  • Camille Bloomfield, exhibit curator
  • Many thanks to : Rachel Good and Christopher Kelly of the Karpeles Manuscripts Library Museums, for their help in the carrying out of this project; Jean-Jacques Thomas and the Melodia E. Jones chair for allowing it to be possible; Virginie Tahar for her efficient work preparing the pieces and their annotations; Lily Robert-Foley for the translation of these annotations; Marcel Bénabou, Paul Fournel and the members of Oupeinpo for their invaluable contribution at all stages of this project.