Documents, 4-vol. set

This special edition box set contains four volumes documenting six of Jean-Luc Loulène’s most well-known photographic series. 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. Edition of 700 signed and numbered copies, English/French.