A Collaborative Drawing in Book Form

In August 2011, Chloé Poizat and Gianpaolo Pagni began drawing on the same sheet of paper. The rule was simple: take turns initiating a drawing, then hand it over. Poizat works in ink; Pagni in stamps. Neither controls where the work goes. Pièces montées is the result — a French-language artist book published by Éditions Cornélius in September 2015.

The process resists authorship. Each drawing is started, interrupted, taken over, redirected. A figure begun in ink becomes something else under the weight of a stamp; a repeated pattern is invaded by a wandering creature. The work accumulates through exchange rather than intention — surreal scenes emerge not from a plan but from the friction between two distinct visual languages.

Poizat's territory is populated by monsters, mutants, ghosts, and errant figures — a kind of dark exoticism she has developed across her work in press illustration and artist books since 1993. Her previous Bal de tête explored similar ground. Here, Pagni animates that world through colour movement and the serialized logic of his stamp-based practice, lending new rhythm and direction to forms that might otherwise remain static. The result is neither one artist's book nor the other's — it is genuinely shared.

For readers drawn to experimental illustration, collaborative practice, or the French tradition of the artist book, Pièces montées sits within a specific and considered lineage. It is available as part of our Artbooks & Artist Publications selection.