Jean-Luc Moulène (b. 1955, France) lives and works in Normandy. He studied Aesthetics and Sciences of Art at the Sorbonne University in Paris where he lived for many years before building his new studio. Since the 1980s he has developed a body of work informed by the critical investigation of authorship and an exploration of issues of autonomy, immanence, and anarchic politics. Over the course of his artistic career, Moulène has maintained a parallel exploration of materials – manufactured and found, industrial and organic. His work is an attempt to link art back to different modes of thought; at the same time, it is an integrative project that adamantly and systematically refuses to resort to the kinds of pre-prescribed approaches to theory and interdisciplinary characteristics of the contemporary art historical canon and curatorial practices.
Like many artists before him, from Donald Judd to Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jean-Luc Moulène conceives of his three-dimensional works as objects eschewing the term and connotations of sculpture. This preference asserts Moulène’s affinity for the common and habitual in his pursuit of alternative processes of creation. He explains, “I speak of image and object, of photograph and product, both transformed. What interests me are the functions of transformation. What then is an ordinary object? What orders organise it, construct and transform it?”
Selected exhibitions include: When Forms Come Alive, Hayward Gallery, London, England (2024), Jean-Luc Moulène and Teams, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Hobart, Tasmania (2023); Técnico Libertário, Casa São Roque – Centro de Arte, Porto, Portugal (2021); More or Less Bone, SculptureCenter, Long Island City NY (2019); Jean-Luc Moulène, The Secession Knot (5.1), Secession, Vienna, Austria (2017); Jean-Luc Moulène, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2016); Larvae and Ghosts, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England (2016); Documents & Opus, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany (2015); Il était une fois, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy (2015); Works, Beirut Art Center, Lebanon (2013); Jean-Luc Moulène, Modern Art Oxford, England (2012); Jean-Luc Moulène: Opus + One, Dia:Beacon, Beacon NY (2011); Jean-Luc Moulène, Carré d’art – Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes, France (2009). His work has been presented as part of the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), the Sharjah Biennial (2011), the First International Biennial of the Image, Laos (2007), the Taipei Biennial (2004), the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), the São Paulo Biennial (2002), and documenta X (1997).
