Jean-Luc Moulène

(*1955, FR)
Pyramid’os, Le Buisson, 2020
Bronze
60 × 70 × 70 cm

The human body, its organs and its limbs constitute a lexical repertoire on which many tongues have drawn has drawn to form many picturesque expressions. From Leonardo da Vinci to Corbusier, the human body has also served as a reference, as a measure. It can be its own standard or part of a geometry, or even serve as a unit in a space structured by its proportions. Echoing this history and these uses, Jean-Luc Moulène has constructed a pyramid with the long bones of the four human limbs. The leg bones–femurs, tibiae and fibulae–join the arm bones–humeri, radii et ulnae–in the pyramid’s skeleton. Thus each of the four joints at the figure’s four vertices–elbows and knees–suffers a dismemberment to follow the laws of geometry. The form erected by Moulène is empty in its heart. This absence reveals the margins to which the lower and upper limbs have been relayed, leaving to the heart, the lungs and the brain their dominant function. The artist defines his pieces as documentary sculptures. This composition bears witness to the representations that constitute our bodies.