Two years after Le bateau ivre, a photobook that led him into a Paris tinged with surrealist
overtones, Martin Essl returns to the Château Rouge district. From there, he wanders once
again through the city – in an introspective and labyrinthine exploration guided by the
colour blue. Blue is usually associated with peace and stability. However, here the teal blue of a rubbish bag, the cobalt blue of a wrecked car, the muted blue of a corrugated metal barrier and the azure blue of the traces left by a refugee camp on Avenue de Flandre tell the story of a Paris that appears calm at first, yet is clearly changing. Urgency and precarity are gradually asserting themselves, transforming the city‘s appearance.
The photographer captures cracks and abysses, filling the fissures with the yellow
and gold of the sun‘s rays as if Paris were a piece of ceramic chipped by the biting north wind. Against the weight of this observation stands a vital impulse that transforms the photographic work into a personal diary. Émile Zola, Rainer Maria Rilke, Virginia Woolf, Georges Perec, Chris Marker, to name but a few, serve as beacons and landmarks, tracing a path, drawing a mental map and establishing connections that recover the lived, human dimension of the city. 
With Le Château Rouge No. 2, the Austrian artist, who has become the „Peasant of Paris“,
lowers his drawbridge and invites us into his room of one’s own. He reminds us that to
photograph is to take possession of a foreign language in which “yesterday” means
“always”.
(Sarah Sauquet, Paris 2026)
Sarah Sauquet is a French literary scholar, professor, and author. After studying literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, she went on to teach modern literature. She is the co-founder of the literary apps Un texte, un jour and Un texte, une femme, and the author of several books on promoting and sharing literature, including Les 1000 livres qui donnent envie de lire (Glénat, 2022) and 100 ROMANS CULTE (Glénat, 2026).