Dr Sharon Kivland’s ‘A Lover’s Discourse’ pre-selected for the Bob Calle Prix du livre d’artiste 2017

An image of the front cover of Dr Sharon Kivland's 'A Lover's Discourse', Ma Bibliotheque 2017

Update – 16 October 2017
Sharon Kivland has now been shortlisted for the Bob Calle Prix du livre d’artiste prize. The two winners will be announced today at a reception and exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

Dr Sharon Kivland‘s book A Lover’s Discourse / Un discours amoureux has been pre-selected for the Bob Calle Prix du livre d’artiste, a prize dedicated to oncologist and renowned art collector Robert Calle. Of those pre-selected, fifteen books as decided by a committee of internationally recognised specialists will go forward to the next round. Find out more about the prize here.

The ceremony award will take place in mid October 2017, in the lecture hall of the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, accompanied by an exhibition, in the Fine Art Chapel, of the winning artist and of all the experts’ selected books.

In the book, Sharon Kivland read and collected unsolicited ‘encounter’ emails as if they were intended for her alone in a sincere desire for a real love relation, until their repetition bored her. She posted them on Facebook, while she sought their form. Her friend A. C. wrote to tell her how much he was enjoying her lover’s discourse. The form became clear: after the French edition of Roland Barthes’s Fragments d’un discours amoureux (“Tel Quel”, Seuil, 1977).

Find out more about Sharon Kivland’s books and other works here.

Dr Sharon Kivland is a Reader in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University.