Published on the occasion of Jean-Luc Moulène's solo exhibition at The Centre Pompidou, October 19, 2016 to February 20, 2017, this box set contains four volumes documenting six of the artist's most well-known photographic series. Moulène, a self-declared technicien libertaire, creates work that is stylistically ambulatory yet bounded by specific conceptual parameters: it must be separate and complete in itself; make clear the conditions under which it was produced; and establish a direct link with that from which it has been separated—which is to say, the world. His practice cuts diagonally across the oft-stratified spheres of economics, politics, and culture in order to reveal gaps in assumed knowledge and allow new figures and transparencies to emerge. Unlike a scientist or a mathematician, an artist must produce work that is not merely the outcome of an experiment, but must also render the experiment available to others; Moulène sees this as his task. The resulting forms are models for other lines of inquiry.
Many of Moulène’s photographic images are grouped under the series Documents, this special publication is comprised of subseries chronicling the writings on the wall inside a tunnel in Paris (Le Tunnel/The Tunnel), a group of sex workers from Amsterdam (Les filles d’Amsterdam/The Amsterdam’s Girls), minor statuettes at the Louvre (Le Louvre), objects made by French workers while on strike (Objets de grève/Strike Objects), an invasive plant species in urban environs (La Vigie/Watch Out), and products illegally exported from Palestine (Produits de Palestine/Palestinian Products). Here, photography functions as a research tool, a form of record keeping. Like Malraux’s Musée Imaginaire, Documents unites the heterogeneity of the world under the sign of photography.
Published by Sequence Press
Designed by Marc Touitou
Bilingual edition: English and French
Softcover, cardboard box, 18 x 24 cm, 640 pp. (449 color & b/w ill.)
Edition of 700 signed and numbered copies
ISBN: 978-0-9975674-2-7