A BEAUTIFUL GAME

the new book by Marc De Tollenaere

A BEAUTIFUL GAME is the new book by Marc De Tollenaere.

96 pages in a large format of 35cm x 25.5cm, entirely hand-printed on on the finest paper using carbon-based inks, and hand-bound.

Released as a special edition, it is produced in a very limited run of only 50 copies, each numbered and signed by the author.

The images in this book unfold like wounds, exposing a reality that is constantly in motion—multifaceted, fluid, and in perpetual transformation.

Everything is destroyed, and yet, everything dances.

In our age, marked by interruption and connection, broken unity and simultaneous plurality, the photographs—paired with the texts of Heraclitus of Ephesus—lead us into a new dimension. Through experiments in freedom, dissolving perspectives, and fragmented yet recomposed images, these interrupted discourses challenge us to imagine beyond the visible.

A BEAUTIFUL GAME is a profound journey into the heart of perception and transformation, inviting the viewer to explore the ever-shifting nature of reality.

With its unique blend of visual art and philosophical thought, this is a book for collectors and anyone who seeks to engage with the deeper questions of existence.

I’m happy to publish a reader’s comment:

The Art of Play: When Photography Becomes a Masterpiece

Today my desk holds something truly precious—an object that transcends the very notion of a “book.”
I finally have in my hands A Beautiful Game, the latest work by Marc de Tollenaere.
It is not merely paper and ink, but a handcrafted work of art, printed with meticulous care on fine paper, in an edition so rare that “exclusive” hardly does it justice: just 50 copies worldwide.

I had known about this project of Marc’s for some time. I was aware of the immense effort behind it—the years spent shooting across every corner of the globe, the constant dialogue with giants of photography such as David Alan Harvey and Joel Meyerowitz. My expectations were extraordinarily high. And yet, as I turned the first pages, I found myself momentarily disoriented.
It all seemed like a kind of chaos.
Then, suddenly, I grasped the key to the game.

What Marc has created is a kind of visual alchemy. What you see is not a single photograph, but the seamless fusion of two distinct images, sometimes taken on different continents and years apart. The resulting composition is so harmonious that it feels like a single instant, captured by fate itself.

But the true miracle reveals itself when you realize the game does not end there: the composition remains perfectly balanced even when paired with the alternate half of the image. It is a level of virtuosity that some artists have attempted within a single frame, yet Marc has managed to sustain it across an entire book, with a coherence that is simply breathtaking.

The more I leaf through it, the more I am overcome by that shiver, that sense of vertigo that only great masterpieces can evoke—a modern form of Stendhal Syndrome.
There is a profound exploration of space, geometry, and chromatic narrative, deeply rooted in the purest traditions of art history. Marc has not merely taken photographs; he has painted with light and time, assembling a global puzzle that reaches the very heights of contemporary photography.

A Beautiful Game is not a book to be read—it is an experience to be lived. I am proud to own a fragment of this vision.

Congratulations, Marc. You have created an absolute masterpiece.

Renato Murolo