Marc Attali - Les Erotiques Du Regard - 1968

Copy and dustjacket in very good condition. Ink smudges to endpapers, and small nicks to hardcover front.

Les Érotiques du Regard (translated as The Erotics of the Gaze) is a seminal 1968 French photobook created by photographer Marc Attali and painter/writer Jacques Delfau. Published by André Balland in Paris, the work is highly regarded in the history of photography as an innovative and ambiguous meditation on voyeurism, urban life, and the "male gaze". The book is famously cataloged and praised in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s definitive reference work, The Photobook: A History (Volume I).

The book consists of 64 black-and-white photographs that capture candid, frequently voyeuristic images of women in public spaces—such as the streets and cafés of Paris.

Many of the photographs appear to be captured furtively, focusing sharply on specific details of the female form, most notably women's legs. According to critics Parr and Badger, the book acts as a "frank meditation on the male gaze." It manages to critique and examine the psychological phenomenon of voyeurism while simultaneously indulging in it. Because the photographs lay bare their own intrusive nature, the book becomes as much about the act of looking (self-regarding) as it is about the subject being looked at.

What elevates the book beyond a standard collection of erotic photography is its unique graphic design and literary layout. Jacques Delfau paired Attali’s imagery with avant-garde concrete poetry and text collages. These text elements were composed of phrases and headlines physically snipped out of Parisian newspapers and magazines. The text was harvested during the tumultuous, revolutionary socio-political climate of Spring 1968 in Paris (the May '68 student and worker protests). The typography does not serve as a mere caption for the imagery; instead, the graphic layout gives the chaotic text fragments equal visual weight to the photographs, creating a striking layout of multimedia montage.

Large quarto/folio format (approximately 35 x 27 cm), spanning unpaginated pages (usually around 112 pages). Originally issued in hardcover, black-and-white photo-illustrated paper-covered boards that were tinted with a distinct pink hue.