The distinction between the real and reality is embodied in our ability to perceive the world (the real) as a network of meanings (reality). Thus, when we perceive an object, it is important to immediately classify it within symbolic value systems in order to assign meaning to it. On this basis, if we were to identify the main themes in Jean-Luc Moulène's work, we could note that they all point towards the real.

Whether in his photographs, drawings, collages, or objects, he always seeks to create situations where reality unravels, revealing a glimpse of the real between its disjointed threads. When he states, “I try to produce realism; this consists of concretely producing a reality to be experienced,” he insists that it is up to the viewer to forge their own keys to interpretation and to draw conclusions about how they understand the signs. It was in the form of photographs that allow “a relationship with the world through its suspension” that Jean-Luc Moulène's work appeared at the turn of the 1980s. Given the diversity of methods used to create these “accepted enigmas,” we can highlight a few recurring patterns in the ways the images are constructed.

“The image that emerges from the text is poetry, the text that emerges from the image is photography”: this phrase accurately highlights the reversible relationship between representation and writing. This relationship can be deliberately literal, as in the series Le Tunnel (2007), where he transcribes photographs of graffiti, or, conversely, much more complex. Thus, the artist responds to the need to use words to make an image intelligible with a tactic of saturating the image with meaning, particularly in street scenes. Most of these photographs are devoid of context, and although they are organized around a central event, its primacy is quickly challenged by other elements that were initially thought to be secondary. This multiplication of meaningful elements makes it difficult to prioritize the information presented in the image, and the combination of elements inevitably leads to a dizzying array of interpretations. By virtue of their openness to meaning, certain images resist assimilation and remain on the surface of reality. “The image is then the site of conflict rather than its representation.”

However, in Moulène's work, the relationship between text and image is never one of discourse that would orient the signs toward transparency and produce a message. On the contrary, since their interpretation engages the responsibility of each individual, they undoubtedly function as “documented poems.” However, since this is poetry, it should be noted that it never points to somewhere else, but to the here and now. When these images appear in public spaces, whether on the street, in a museum, gallery, or newspaper, their emergence disrupts the usual consumption of visual experiences. Thus, the images created for Catherine David's Documenta X appeared without captions, scattered throughout the pages of a daily newspaper or on the streets of Kassel.

Jean-Luc Moulène is particularly interested in subjects that are not immediately apparent, whether they be objects made during strikes (39 objets de grèves, 1999-2000), which paradoxically combine production and work stoppages, or the series Produits de Palestine (2002-2005), which advertise objects cut off from the globalized market. Indeed, the images he creates are never sensationalist; the authority of the spectacular regime is always questioned, since “working around commonplaces” or “with common sense” means stripping the term of its connotation of banality and considering the common in its strongest sense, that is, as that which creates community.

Finally, the rejection of style is particularly noticeable in the work of Jean-Luc Moulène. Each of the pieces he creates points in a different direction. This lack of polarization in his work prevents each piece from being placed within the framework of a series that would make them immediately intelligible. Thus, when an exhibition brings together several works, we can see the diversity of the fields in which they participate and observe that their accumulation does not tend to make the work more readable. On the contrary, the great heterogeneity of the subjects and their treatment deliberately prevents the images from being appreciated as a whole and requires the viewer to take a particular approach to each one. Rather than a series of images, therefore, they are disjointed images.