Biennale 2025

All authors, designers, publishers, and illustrators dream of creating a hero so popular that it allows them to live without worry and to explore other creative avenues in peace. Thanks to his character Commissaire Maigret, Georges Simenon (1903–1989) struck gold.

Simenon wrote quickly because, at first, he needed money. His rapid and massive output (nearly five books a year for about fifty years) had a double effect. First, the sheer volume took the drama out of it—there’s a sense of cheerfulness in his work. Second, it led to something rare: the visual design of entire collections dedicated to a single author. Typography takes center stage—often a pipe, sometimes smoke, and the silhouette of a man.

But how do you maintain consistency and visual interest over time without becoming repetitive? That’s where color and photography come to the rescue. What’s remarkable is that the quantity never gets in the way of simplicity—this is Simenon’s great design lesson. There’s a big difference between looking at a single Simenon paperback and observing several books from the same collection together: front covers, back covers, and spines. They function as a system—each book complements the one next to it, a miniature world takes shape before our eyes, and the magic comes to life.

The exhibition curated by Élodie Boyer, in collaboration with Pierre-Yves Cachard and Bernd Hilpert, presents nearly 300 paperback books collected by Élodie Boyer, from various French, Dutch, German, Italian, and English editions. It offers a thoughtful glimpse into the richness of graphic explorations found in these popular objects.