The Court Case over Houellebecq Having Sex Is Like a KIRAC Film, “Only Live”

Jeroen Coelen — 24 April 2023

Last week, the French writer Michel Houellebecq brought a case against the artists’ collective KIRAC over an art film in which he has sex, but which he came to regret. KIRAC-watcher Jeroen Coelen attended and reports for EW Podium.

On Tuesday, 18 April, a tense group of people stands outside the closed door of a courtroom between the white marble walls of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. For many, this is the first court hearing they have attended, but that is not the reason for the tension. Michel Houellebecq, the leading French writer of the moment, is demanding that the latest film by Stefan Ruitenbeek and his film collective KIRAC, Keeping It Real Art Critics, be banned from screening. The film contains footage of Houellebecq having sex. Although this was agreed in advance in a contract, Houellebecq feels he was tricked and does not want the film released.

An account of a controversial case

Ruitenbeek, dressed in a neatly tailored baby-blue suit, welcomes everyone personally and chats animatedly with his supporters. He seems unaffected by the tension and looks cheerful. Paradoxically, the filmmaker explains to me later that day, this is because he faces personal bankruptcy. That calms him during what is otherwise a fairly tumultuous period.

Besides earlier court cases in France and the Netherlands, both won by KIRAC, the conflict has also been fought out in the media. In Spanish, German and Dutch newspapers, and online at Vice, both parties eagerly told their stories. It bore a strong resemblance to an old-fashioned polemic. Columnists defended the film, or did the opposite. One thing is certain: it is a controversial case.

KIRAC: controversy as a trademark

KIRAC holds up a mirror to society on contemporary subjects, but not without consequences. Controversy is seen as KIRAC’s trademark. In 2021, there was an outcry over a KIRAC film in which the “right-wing” Sid Lukkassen was to have sex with the “left-wing” philosopher Jini van Rooijen “to counter polarisation in the Netherlands”. At the film’s premiere, the artist Julian Andeweg, who had just become embroiled in a MeToo scandal, was brought in on a horse with the aim of “uncancelling” him.

Where some see KIRAC’s creations as provocations, the film collective itself speaks of “performances”. But for many, it went too far. Last year KIRAC was invited to hold an exhibition and premiere at the art academy in Ghent, but an organisation opposing sexual violence criticised the invitation: KIRAC allegedly glorified rape culture. The academy’s management gave in to the criticism. An activist group used a similar argument over an event with KIRAC at De Balie in Amsterdam. Earlier, Amsterdam’s Gerrit Rietveld Academie had cancelled a debate with KIRAC.

KIRAC’s magical attraction

KIRAC regularly seems to wreak havoc with considerable skill. Disrupted campuses, cancelled events, outrage surrounding Sid Lukkassen and now a court case with a French novelist. Yet some fifty KIRAC fans sat in the public galleries during this appeal in Amsterdam. What exactly is KIRAC’s attraction?

Last year I joined about fifty others on a bus trip organised by KIRAC to the event in Ghent, which was ultimately cancelled. I spoke to curious, inquisitive, artistically inclined people in their twenties and thirties. Certainly not radicals. At the Amsterdam Court of Appeal I encountered people of the same stamp. On the one hand, many did not deny being drawn by something sensational. But was this merely a school outing with KIRAC devotees as disaster tourists in the courtroom? Everyone I spoke to was at least as interested in the substance of the case. Above all, they wondered about the motives of both parties, and about the boundaries of art and the freedoms of an artist. Questions that recur frequently in KIRAC’s work.

KIRAC fans are also Houellebecq fans

Although these supporters were clearly in the KIRAC camp, the same people also said they were fans of Houellebecq. Unfortunately for them, the novelist was absent. At the beginning of his lawyer’s argument, we hear that the writer is sitting at home, immobilised by shame over the case. While awaiting the outcome, he drinks and smokes constantly. Admirers of Houellebecq will not necessarily see the latter as unusual behaviour.

The lawyer argues that Houellebecq has “neighbouring rights”, a form of intellectual property rights related to copyright, as a performing artist: after all, he played a role in the film. But did he? Participants in a documentary are not actors, KIRAC reasons. A documentary is a copyrighted work, Ruitenbeek’s lawyer says, because creativity is involved in choosing which footage makes the final cut.

Houellebecq wanted to be able to deny participating in the sex film

The judge explores this boundary: at one point in the footage, Houellebecq puts on a wolf mask. Can that be regarded as a creative act? Some of the audience laugh; the judge remains impassive. The wolf mask was only intended to conceal his identity, KIRAC’s lawyer responds. This mattered to Houellebecq, who had stipulated in a contract that his head and genitals would not appear on screen simultaneously. Houellebecq wanted to be able to claim afterwards that it was not him having sex in the footage. For him, this covered the risks.

After the trailer appeared online earlier this year, Houellebecq changed his mind: the entire film had to be banned. No intimate scene may be released, he argues, regardless of whether his head or his genitals are visible. During the hearing, the judge steers towards a compromise: can these intimate scenes be removed from the film?

A Kafkaesque court case: what is intimate?

Ruitenbeek’s lawyer responds with amusement: is sitting together on a bed already intimate? Is kissing intimate? Or does intimacy begin only with penetration? The audience laughs at this Kafkaesque attempt to define “intimate”—a heroic task, given the distance between the two parties.

Or is this merely a game played by both sides? Both Ruitenbeek and Houellebecq have said in the media that they will incorporate this case into their current and future work. If so, the case about an artwork itself becomes an artwork.

In their argument, Houellebecq’s lawyers emphasise KIRAC’s method: the dividing line between fiction and nonfiction blurs. In this way KIRAC creates ambiguity. It is precisely this ambiguity that many people find so charming about KIRAC’s work. The viewer is forced to take a position, which is not always easy. The same applies to this court case. Afterwards, one spectator reflects: this court case is like a KIRAC film, only live.

The judge, at any rate, has not yet taken a position, for example on the validity of the contract that was signed. First, an attempt will be made to reach a compromise. Houellebecq must travel to Amsterdam soon for this. If no settlement is reached, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal will issue a ruling on 16 May.

KIRAC’s response

In a response to EW, Ruitenbeek says he does not yet know what the film will look like. He does emphasise that it is an intimate art film, not a “sex film” as claimed in the media.

Jeroen Coelen (1991) is a PhD candidate at TU Delft researching innovation in start-ups.