Exercise in Style is based on the literary work Exercices de style (1974) by the French writer Raymond Queneau. Queneau presents a simple story in 99 different ways, and the book became a classic. Set in Paris, the story revolves around a young man on a bus getting into an argument. A little later, the same man has a conversation about a button in front of the Saint-Lazare train station. De Nooy selected all sentences mentioning ‘gare Saint-Lazare’ and collected buttons and postcards showing the station in 99 different styles.
Exercise in Style is part of Arjan's de Nooy body of work Photology, based on the eponymous book (2023). Inspired by the work of the Czech philosopher Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), who thought photography fundamentally changed the way the world is seen, Arjan de Nooy puts forward his own view on photography in 20 propositions. These are the opening moves of Photology, from which the book was developed. Photology is a photobook about photography played by the author.
The title refers both to the study of the medium as well as to the logic of photography games. Using found photographs, postcards, online images and photo simulations, De Nooy constructs an overview of photography. He organized the book by topical categories like history, chance, style, information, genres (such as portrait), and photography theorists, without aiming at objectivity or completeness. Each category is explored from De Nooy’s individual perspective and treated in a distinctive, sometimes whimsical, manner.