Exagraphie – Partitions photographiques (2003-2018)

Exagraphie is a retrospective of fifteen years of Aurélie Pétrel’s research and production. It gathers a selection of emblematic pieces that represent the artist’s method, as well as contributions from authors who form what she calls “her ecosystem”.

Exagraphie has been conceived as an editorial process in several stages that re-enacts the concepts and working procedures of Aurélie Pétrel. Conceived in collaboration with the graphic designer Benoit Brient, this work is based on the re-photography of an “images-matrix” printed in one copy. These re-photographs make up the pages of the book, which are organised in twelve sixteen-page sections. Each booklet is a thematic entry that brings together a set of “latent shots” and documents their activation.

Exagraphie is a work of scientific value on, and in the service of, Pétrel’s work. This approach is particularly expressed in the formal work and in the writing of the captions: they endeavour to retranscribe precisely the complex genealogy of the artist’s shots through a chronological enumeration of their different states, and a rigorous census of the exhibition locations and the people involved in the different sequences of the work. These captions show the evolution of the status of the image in Aurélie Pétrel’s method and demonstrate how the same image covers multiple forms—just as a word sometimes covers different meanings.

The eight contributions gathered in this book are the result of carte blanches addressed to the authors by Aurélie Pétrel. Placed before, in the middle of and after the twelve image books, these contributions constitute the entourage of Aurélie Pétrel’s work, reflecting the role that they have played in her professional life for the past fifteen years.