Born out of a reflection on the nature of images and their nocturnal vocation, Better in the Dark than His Rider is both a fable and a survival guide. The collected work by Francesco Merlini spans different years, possibly quite distant from one other; shot in all four continents, his pictures reveal the unique perspective of someone who, like a sleepwalker guided by ghosts, seeks for something nameless. The title is drawn, almost literally, from a 19th century manual of optics. The original sentence – “[…] much better in the dark than his rider” – refers to a horse’s night vision compared to a human’s.
The selected sequence of pictures unravels around the transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep, engaging with hypnagogia as a sensory yet dreamlike mode of semiconscious representation. Images make up mind’s psychic contents. If in dreams self-consciousness is suspended and images look real to the extent that we are sleeping, when dozing we can consciously guide them because partially aware that we are dreaming. Stated otherwise, in lucid dreams we know we are faced with the contents of our imagination, whose edges appear hallucinatory. Dreaming is a perpetual state we do experience both asleep and awake. Thanks to imagination, the dream matter turns into the mind’s real object again.

23,5×31 cm
Hard cover with embossing
Offset UV
80 pages
Paper:
Munken Lynx Rough 150 g/m²
Fedrigoni Sirio Nero 140 g/m²
Wibalin Natural Petal

Eros negro n°4 - Démoniak
Critique d'art n°56
Le Dépli - Loïc Largier
Sans titre - Chris Kiss
Carnivore - Grow
Manuel d'écologie urbaine - Audrey Muratet, François Chiron
Flynn zine # 1 - Flynn Maria Bergmann
La France de tête #04
Le Choix du peuple - Nicolas Savary, Tilo Steireif
Dernier royaume - Quentin Derouet
Une goutte d'homme - Alice Dourlen
Eros negro #2 - Demoniak
Pas vu Pas pris - Collectif, Olivier Deloignon, Guillaume Dégé
the Ghost of Weaving - Coll.
(page 1 et 17) - Lorraine Druon
Soleil, eau, vent : vers l'autonomie énergétique - Delphine Bauer
SKKS - Gilles Pourtier
Tableaux fluo - 2013-2016 - Nina Childress
Lavalse des tambours - Paul Rey
Saint Julien l'hospitalier Tome 3 - Claire Pedot
Before Science - Gilles Pourtier, Anne-Claire Broc'h
Rois de la forêt - Alain Garlan
Tomber dans l'escalier - Jasper Sebastian Stürup
Les Grands Ensembles - Léo Guy-Denarcy
Critique d'art n°55
Holy Mountain - Maia Matches, Knuckles & Notch
Amos Gitai et l'enjeu des archives - Jean-Michel Frodon
Hérésie Étiologique - coll.
Avec ce qu'il resterait à dire - Anne Maurel
Hobo Nickel - Damien Sauvage
In The Navy - Julien Kedryna
Assembly - Sam Porritt
Lazy Painter - Angela Gjergjaj, Jordi Bucher and Mirco Petrini
Dédale - Laurent Chardon
Anthologie Douteuses (2010—2020) - Élodie Petit & Marguerin Le Louvier
Temps d'arrêt - Etienne Buyse
Acteurs d'un film gravé. Docteur A. Infirmier O. - Annabelle Dupret, Olivier Deprez et Adolpho Avril
Philonimo - Le Chien de Diogène - Alice Brière-Haquet, Kazuko Matt
Pour une esthétique de l'émancipation - Isabelle Alfonsi
Entretiens – Jérôme Dupeyrat 































