ART GALLERY / This print is unique in that it can be read in both directions as a singular palindrome that can be read from left to right and right to left: This table is actually a letter and the letter is a table . All flabbergasted that I was the day I discovered the unimaginable love letter that may exist, my amazement quickly turned into an opioid wonder! I confess my surprise rivaled doubt any falsification as the unusual nature of this "letter" digging large furrows in my brain. And it is not rare interpretations and analyzes of some anthropologists and semioticians known that reassured me. The day came when my indecision inconceivable stopped, when umpteenth reference appeared in a book with a foreword by Jean Bottero and written by no less renowned classical philologist that was Doblhofer Ernst (1919-2002, a specialist in deciphering ancient texts and languages) and published in 1959 and reprinted several times Arthaud editions. The author pointed out the existence of other such letters that the time nor the place he had not revealed. Alas, it is no longer of this world and in the meantime the publisher was bought by a large media group. So far my requests have gone unheeded if not forgotten, which is not a euphemism. A final clarification before describing and interpreting the famous letter. To this day, it would be a German general and writer who has also in 1896, first reported the letter and maybe a few others? It is Krahmer Gustav (1839-1905) who after taking leave of the army, spent many years in Russia, studying among other different peoples of this vast empire. Fortunately, many of his works are available at the University Library of Strasbourg; unfortunately none evokes the said letter, but is it really bad luck? I leave you to judge, knowing that my research is not necessarily closed! Perhaps it is You readers, who fill my wishes? Let us it is unthinkable that the original letter still exist for reasons that we will find a few lines later. At best we have a design that could be Krahmer Gustav, but nothing is less safe? Finally decipher this incredible love letter? As you can imagine, this exercise is only possible with the various conclusions of those previously mentioned, I'll do that through the pale! These "love letters", since this is the way to call them, are not written or drawn, but notched knife on the bark by girls youkagires (Yukagirs) north-east Siberia. Do not forget that we are in the Arctic Circle (arctic circle). Having regard to the places, the period without forgetting the symbolic when it is not profound disinterest orchestrated deliberately by the policies for these ethnic minorities, we can easily imagine that these "letters" have rotted in some sinister garbage! When the dialect itself, before 1920, it was widespread, it is now used in two isolated islands is only 353 speakers over 2000 members: one between the rivers and Yassatchnaïa Korkoda, and other in the tundra between the rivers and Indighirka Alazeïa. We can therefore assume that the language today as "writing" youkagire has since been completely absorbed by his entourage, and both by a Russian dialect Paleoasian East much more widespread as the Chukchi. This allows us to give this document a priori convoluted, high ethnological interest, while a beauty like no other. To return to the authors of these "letters" that were exclusively retain girls in manners which in effect forbade confess their love verbally, this right being reserved only for young males. Also, a few dance parties organized by the villages around gave the girls the opportunity to make these little masterpieces and give them to the man of their heart.
It has nevertheless a much more emotional since reading is translated as follows: "You're going. You love me a Russian woman who bar the way to you. Children are born and give you joy. But I am sad forever in the house where we lived our love and I do not think of and that you, even if another man said love me now! "The approach of this woman that unreal, it was again identified in the virgin of the past to renew the initial message of love sent on the first day it was reported, but these times with the deepest despair of love! One can imagine that it has put endless time to finalize as if this "letter" was to be the bearer of love so that it could only return her lover!
It is true; as I have pointed out that the original had only two colors: the bark and cut. Thanks to the polychrome paintings in your contemporary artist, the six characters in this love drama represented in the form of long straights fan-shaped are easily recognizable pink children, women in red (their hair shaped long braids are dotted orange), blue men. All wear the local costume youkagire woven through and bicolor, whereas in reality each clan had its weaving with specific colors which allowed to know what family they belonged. The houses are in yellow, love this way, is shown at the top of the table in the form of scrolls, white spots are also found here and there on the web, note immediately that there were at leaving hundreds and I have limited to 75 units, I have no confidence in their subjects, if they should express more or less of each symbol?
But go into the details: the big long yellow house on the right is one of our spurned love and tears, which languishes alone in his house now completely empty, which it is attached, that attachment and grief are his enormous represented by large bundles of yellow and red lines cross alive! His attachment to her former lover is also represented by a curve which joins fine, but especially by expressing his great love shown by the large volutes air directed toward her lover without being able to touch so far! Enter the second house, smaller may be under construction or not yet completed? Below, a Russian woman becoming flesh, wearing a skirt, is closely linked with our man, and, you guessed through crossed beams and tight between them. We note that above it leaves a thin red line that suddenly becomes very thick and bar and everything that comes from the ex-girlfriend, all links and feelings change color against the dam which is exactly in the middle of the "letter"! In fact, the man still feels strong ties with his former home (blue and yellow beams crossed between him and the right house) and a blue tie still exists towards his former mistress, but blocked by his new companion, this link changes color. It is possible that the author of this "letter" or went to see a clairvoyant shaman who confirmed that his rival would have two children, and it seems that one is already in the making, being already half in the house his parents! Another interpretation for the house on the left is that because the framework is not extended to the bottom, its occupants are absent! Of course, it is the last character on the right, a man in love with our girl so moving, love that it is not made! But is not it the romance of life ever again since women and men exist? Regarding the bottom of the table and the choice of two different black diamond’s presented with hatched, it is a personal choice. By that, I wanted to be a weaving material for a writing medium. When the black were the only colors even highlight all pictograms. Techniques primitive pictographic writing, which resembles those that led to the first human writings themselves, has survived to our time. This "letter" is to me one of the most moving testimonies brought to my attention. What do you think, even if your subjectivity civilisationnel prevent you from entering the intimate love this youkaguir?
Would you be so little when I already have several? (Sic)

ADDENDUM: For those who want to know more, although I think this is enough for many of you, know that communication accompanying the work was presented at the University from Québec to Chicoutimi as partial requirement Master of Fine Arts by Diane Landry, and entitled The Miracles of writing - page 14 entitled "blackbody fissure or text in the image texture. "In November 1986. Here I complete preview delivers you an open book: The love letter, though written in the early twentieth century, is primitive techniques of pictographic writing, by stylized images of an object or a person used to suggest another object or a difficult concept to represent the image. The story, the text is the "Harlequin romance" * but autobiographical. Although it gives me the meaning of this text, I forget or rather I put it aside. I look like a conceptual design that could be a possible reading grid for my business. I read, and somehow, I appropriate letter:
The author of the "letter: Artist / Issuer
House author: Alone with its production
Crossed lines the author: His gesture, his work symbolized by the crossed lines
The ex-lover: The / the recipient
Home of the new couple: Exhibition place where one can find the / the recipient
The rival's work that draws attention, look
Links between the rival and former lover close links uniting / recipient and the work
Future children: Deciphering the meaning / the consignee gives birth to reading activity and other meaning, probably, perhaps divergent elsewhere.
Big red line that intersects the middle of the lover links: The artist feels the distance that has developed between her and her work
Large volute red But she perseveres in his passion, although demanding
Another man in love: Despite the fact that she could choose another activity.
And why not? I let the other possible versions of other readers.
These three acetates ** support various scriptures that reached us after millennia of writings that added permanence to the spoken language, who designed our past and our alphabet created by successive stages.
These are gestures that my generation assimilates, but that I am the author of it. Yet, they are my words as I recover and integrate them into my words to serve my purpose.
The other two panels are more personal spiral from which, nevertheless, is beyond me, to penetrate to the heart of my identity and my actions. This is the photographic image of my signature and pictographs of work to do. END COMMUNICATION.
* Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. = Publishing House specializing in romance novels, with 12 million pounds per year for 3 million people.
** Acetate =the vernacular sense québéquois = Flipchart.
Siberian folklore
The origin of the contemporary cultures of the peoples of Siberia is rooted in the mists of time. But these folk are also enriched indigenous traditions of other people’s immigrants. For Alexander Soktoev Siberian, director of the Novosibirsk Institute of Philology, "Folklore - Oral and living daily life - teaching lifestyle Millennium ancestors communicates the desire for harmonious coexistence with nature, rules of survival in the harsh conditions of these regions it holds secrets that nobody in the world except the depositary is Aboriginal. Addition to ecological topics ("Do not take the kind you need"), the ethics occupies considerable space ...” And he continues: "Even today, folklore plays a vital role in the lives of Siberian peoples and for various reasons, in the depths of themselves, feel their indigenous folklore is the foundation of their national consciousness, the oldest layer of their culture will be preserved over this layer, the more they will be able to stand on the earth. Another involved: the majority of Aboriginal people - especially the numerically smaller - live in remote areas, still difficult to access (...), so these people are very full of their ethno-cultural traditions”. (Otherwise, Occasional No. 78, 1994)
And tomorrow?
For all those "little people" of the Russian Far North, the advent of communism, anxious to create a "new man" was to rule the settlement and the passage of a local management and "responsible" traditionally built the great laws nature (shamanism), a performance-based management and five-year plans: colonization of the territories (fishing, farming, mining, oil ...), without following migration, assistance. Consequences: "Private property of their pasture their herds of reindeer, resource hunting and fishing, a sense of their own dignity, responsibility for their own life," the Siberians have "lost their soul "their raison d'être, sinking into despair: idleness, infant mortality, alcoholism, suicide.
But since the opening of Russia to the world, fascinated in particular by the actions of American Inuit, Siberian minorities seek to impose their point of view they organize themselves to manage their territories. In 1990, 26 "small peoples of the North" held their first congress in Moscow and their representatives are now involved in all international circumpolar.

A LIMITED EDITION SERIES 100 ORIGINAL PRINTS on Arches paper 300 grams, is offered in 74 x 54 cm, each numbered and signed. Price: € 75- / USD 98- / RUB 3026- = Mailing France and abroad under roll included
Payment by check payable to: PHILHELM - 92 Melanie Street - 67000 STRASBOURG - FRANCE
For more information, call me at: 0033 (0) 3 88 31 10 10 or: philhelm@free.fr

Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret, French art critic, kindly comment on this picture:
LETTRE D’AMOUR SUR FOND NOIR ET QUI NE S’ECRIT PAS
Le pictogramme recomposé par Philhelm permet de replonger au fond même de l’expérience du primitivisme à la fois l’émotion et le sentiment amoureux, sa beauté, sa force et sa douleur.
Généralement on veut réduire le corps à parler l’amour et la peinture à l’ « ornementer ». On oublie ses tuyaux, ses entrailles, ses dépressions abyssales. De la Sibérie, Philhelm recrée une retranscription où - sans qu’il soit directement à l’image - le corps saisi de la violence de l’affect est en jeu. Sa mentalisation ne passe plus par un code purement abstrait. La femme qui s’exprime invente le tracé où tout est « dit ». Le jeu des lignes prouve un retour sur une expérience hélas perdue. D’une part la direction des formes en volutes vers la gauche symbolise l’espace d’une nostalgie brûlante. Celles qui montent de la terre vers le ciel donnent à l’amour une forme d’élévation. Elle prend racine dans le bas de l’image. Mais cette fondation n’a rien de confuse, tout est net et précis. Preuve que celle qui écrit n’écrivant pas n’est pas dans la confusion ou la folie d’amour.
La finesse de traits globalise ses émotions, les « redressent ». La « parole » dans le dessin – invaginé et parfois phallique - s’épanouit en volutes. L’inégalité des douleurs comme de la beauté sont signifiées par deux couleurs (rose et bleu) et la différence de la portance de ces volutes. De fait ce qui est à l’image devient le verbe poussé au paroxysme. Il échappe au logos. L’image est langue entre la langue. C’est la fin des littératures. Ou leur commencement. C’est une histoire de caverne. Platon a fait l’impasse dessus. L’ « artiste » sibérienne non. Elle n’écrit pas sur l’amour mais dedans. Elle écrit de (le « de » de l’origine) l’amour. Il y a là toute une déambulation et une errance reprises, analysées et surtout métamorphosées où s’ouvrent le souffle et le cri.
Finies les vieilles répliques, finies les représentations romantico-sentimentalistes de l’amour. A cheval entre le signe et une forme d’abstraction l’œuvre « sauvage » dit tout sans l’intrusion des larmes et des métaphores. Elle prouve que l’amour lorsqu’il n’est pas réciprocité est un suicide assumé mais aussi un plaisir lorsque à son corps défendant il se transforme en œuvre d’art implicite. Loin de la glose le mal d’amour parle non une langue primitive mais nouvelle. Elle ébranle nos systèmes de représentation et ceux de la reproduction. Surgit une autre domination. Cette langue graphique et plastique échappe à la maternelle comme à celle de la loi des pères et des repères. Elle est aussi naturelle que sophistiquée. Elle reste la plus proche de la sensation. Et ce, au moyen des formes et de codes qu’il faut réapprendre. Vus d’aujourd’hui et d’ici ils peuvent sembler une prouesse et un étrange dialogue.
La langue du pictogramme dévore les mots et les images. Le pictogramme devient l’acte de faire non un discours mais un corps qui bouge, sort, s’use, recommence. S’y éprouve l’action de l’action du sens et de l’émotion. S’y ressent différents degrés d’ouvertures ou d’étranglements. L’œuvre parle sans phonèmes pour sortir les états de douleur et de damnation en un jeu et un système de lignes symphoniques. Tout « s ‘oralise » par un langage libéré du langage et par une image désimageante. Les lignes et les formes parcourent tout le trajet vital, animal mais aussi intellectuel. Cela rend céleste le corps terrestre. La langue n’est plus affaire d’orifice mais de geste. Et si la lettre d’amour ne s’écrit plus : elle fait mieux. Elle n’opère plus de frein dans le théâtre du temps. Extérieur de l’intérieur, intérieur de l’extérieur, dans cette lettre le « je » devient un paradoxal italique. Et la parole n’est pas à l’extérieur. Mais pas à l’intérieur non plus. En cette doloire* pérenne, cette vidéation** l’homme, le mâle, est sans majuscule dans celle de l’œuvre. La sensation émise n’est plus une affaire de cerveau. Le langage est devenu graphique, gestuel, musicien, image de fond, drame et comédie de la vie. Il est si loin, il est si proche. Surgit la sensation pure sans renonciation. Si bien que celle qui envoie cette lettre peut être prise pour une primitive : elle demeure toutefois une primitive du futur. Mais il ne nous est plus donné (ou pas encore) de le connaître. C’est moins un futur antérieur qu’un passé postérieur. Jean-Paul GAVARD-PERRET
*Doloire : un ancien instrument tranchant (allusion à l’entaille sur écorce faite par notre youkaguire).
**Vidéation : Un néologisme pour une construction mentale d'images non manifestées, qui peuvent être sommaires, d'interprétation, de représentation déformée ou exagérée.

Nourit MASSON-SÉKINÉ - Plasticienne et auteure, spécialiste de la danse Butoh, réalise expositions et installations dans des galeries et des musées, des lieux alternatifs ou scéniques en France et sur la scène internationale. Voici son interprétation :
« Ce que je vois dans cette lettre d’amour, c'est comment l'être aimé/aimant est tissé et nourri de l'existence de l'autre virtuel ou réel mais objet d'amour. Vases communicants masculin et féminin par la couleur, construisant une structure (maison ?) et des liens (enfants éventuellement - mais enfants veut dire aussi un tiers, tout tiers créé par la rencontre de 2- en amour de surcroît.) Je vois aussi que le deuxième - objet d'amour - est absent mais le lien psychique réalise ce que la réalité ne concrétise pas ... laissé ouvert aux innombrables, liens extérieurs et inconnus, comme la lettre « Beith* » en hébreu fermée à droite par le sens de l'écriture - ouvert à gauche pour le temps/espace en devenir. Ce qui est lié semble venir du monde de la création, les données construisent, et le devenir reste sujet à transformation, au non-savoir, et échappe à la seule volonté. Ce qui laisse ouverte la question. Le désespoir supposé ne m'est pas visible, une interprétation certes possible néanmoins ... par les traits barrés sur le personnage de droite qui serait comme enfermé par la solitude que l'autre ne saisirait que partiellement (l’espace barré chez l'autre est plus petit - plus lointain ?) Enfin voilà un rébus poétique, passionnant parce qu'il inspire le langage symbolique… » *Beith qui est la deuxième lettre de l’alphabet hébraïque qui a pour valeur 2 et signifie : maison.