Jean-Luc Moulène

Jean-Luc Moulène (born 1955) is a French contemporary artist based in Paris, France. Spanning a wide variety of media, such as photography, drawings, and sculptures, Moulène's practice examines the relationship between systems and orders. Moulène has stated that he subscribes to the notion of a 'disjunction,' whereby he follows a principle of discrepancies as a way to "find new dialectical knowledge." His interests include the "symbolic position of the author" and authorship; processes of production, repetition, and accumulation; labor and social space; and the intersection of advanced technology and contemporary material culture, among others. Moulène identifies himself as a "technicien libertaire" (life itself as a technique), who transforms "the process of perception as an aesthetic end in itself to one that incorporates everyday life" in his work.

Early life and career Moulène began studying art in 1972 at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Versaille, where he became friends with the artist Michel Journiac. Journiac introduced Moulène to artists in the Art Corporel movement, such as Gina Pane and Hermann Nitsch. This exhibition spurred Moulène's practice to diverge "in terms of his method of production" and shaped his subsequent series. By the late 1990s, Moulène simultaneously began work on different series and organized the images into subgroups within the broader category of Documents/. Produits de Palestine (2004–2005): this is a series of photographs documenting products made in the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and branded as Palestinian. Due to the sanctions, the objects cannot circulate around the world "in the way they now circulate as photographs." Flash Art has remarked that Moulène's work "carry a strange form of tautology at the core of their very existence...While 'not producing' the objects, workers have nonetheless produced them, and so the markers of stoppage must be conveyed by other means."

Opus (1995– ) In the mid 1990s, Moulène initiated a parallel project consisting of three-dimensional objects and termed them "Opus." In this series, Moulène explores materials—both manufactured and found, and industrial and organic. These works, including bronze, cement, tobacco, and wood, are each identified with a title as well as the city, month, and year in which they were fabricated. On Moulène's dual practice in photography and three-dimensional object, Nathalie Delbard has written that Moulène modifies "the aesthetic regime each of them belongs to in order to expose its implicit structures." The subsets within "Opus" are influenced by topology, and mathematical structures and theories, with an emphasis on protocol and transformation. Particularly important is knot theory, which Moulène considers as "tools to describe complexity."

More or Less Bone (Formal Topological Optimization) (2018–2019)

In 2019, Moulène had his first institutional exhibition in North America since 2011 at the SculptureCenter. In the exhibition, Moulène premiered More or Less Bone (Formal Topological Optimization), a monumental new work in fiberglass and epoxy paint. For the work, Moulène collaborated with engineers from Aerospace Valley in France with expertise in formal optimization—when the form of an object is defined a process that identifies the "most efficient, least wasteful" solution within a set of variables. Moulène proposed to produce an optimized form connecting a sphere, a spiral staircase, and a knucklebone; he and the engineers then "manipulated the form of this 'object of juncture' to account for a set volume, scale, terrestrial gravity, the material properties of fiberglass, and environment conditions."

Exhibitions Moulène's works have been exhibited in the Venice Biennial (2019, 2003); the Taipei Biennial (2016 and 2004); the Sharjah Biennial (2010); the First International Biennial of the Image (Laos, 2007); the Sao Paulo Biennial (2002); and Documenta X (1997). Solo exhibitions of Moulène's works have been held at SculptureCenter, New York (2019); Miguel Abreu Gallery (2019, 2017, and 2014); Centre d'art contemporain, Delme (2018); Fondation d'enterprise Hermes, Brussels (2018); Secession, Vienna (2017); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016–2017); Villa Medici, Rome (2015); Kunstverein Hannover (2014); Dia:Beacon, New York (2012); Carré d'art-Musée d'art contemporain, Nîmes (2009); Culturgest, Lisbon (2007); Musée du Louvre, Paris (2005); and Centre d'Art Contemporain de Genève (2003). Moulène's work has been included in group exhibitions at MoMA PS1 (New York); École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris; Centre de la photographie Genève, Miejski Osrodek Sztuki (Gorzów, Poland); S.M.A.K. (Ghent, Belgium); MMOMA (Moscow); Secession (Vienna); Museo Tamayo (Mexico City); Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Punta Della Dogana – Palazzo Grassi (Venice); Witte de With (Rotterdam), ARC / Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Le Magasin (Grenoble); Yokohama Museum of Art; Triennale de Milano; KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin); Museum Ludwig (Cologne); De Appel (Amsterdam); Landesmuseum Joanneum GmbH Kunsthaus (Graz); Centre Pompidou (Paris); Kunstverein Nürnberg, and elsewhere.

Monographs

Jean-Luc Moulène Dessins/Drawings 1977–2016 (Dijon: Les Presses Du Reel, 2018) Jean-Luc Moulène: Breves, 2017 (Vienna: Secession/Revolver Press, 2017) Jean-Luc Moulène (Paris: Centre Pompidou/Editions Dilecta, 2016) Jean- Luc Moulène: Documents, 1999-2016 (New York: Sequence Press, 2016) 39 Strike Objects: 1999–2000 (New York: Sequence Press, 2016) Jean-Luc Moulène: Disjonctions / Opus & Documents / Il Était Une Fois (Vienna: Verlag Für Moderne Kunst, 2014) 48 Palestinian Products (Berlin: PhotoCairo3, 2007) Opus + One (New Haven: Yale University Press and Dia Art Foundation, 2012) Berlin (Gottingene: Steidel, 2000) Déposition. Jean-Luc Moulène 1997 (Paris: Paris Musées, 1998)

Other texts on his work include Matter and Form: Self-evidence and Surprise: On Jean-Luc Moulène's Objects by Alain Badiou (Sequence Press, 2019) and Torture Concrete: Jean-Luc Moulène and the Protocol of Abstraction by Reza Negarestani (Sequence Press, 2014).

Collections Moulène's works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York); Tate (London); Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles); Pinault Collection; Dia Art Foundation (New York); Musée de l'art moderne de la ville de Paris; Kadist Art Foundation (Paris); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (Strasbourg, France); and Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Paris).