Xavier Mulet’s M. Ardan is a work of fiction, a photographic project influenced by the writings of Herman Melville, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Julio Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Charles Darwin, H. G. Wells, Mark Twain and Stendhal. At the same time, it offers a detailed survey of the history of photography in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
The invention of a mysterious, unknown figure under the pseudonym of M. Ardan – writer, photographer, botanist and tireless traveller – provides Mulet with an excuse to examine themes such as the rediscovery of unknown authors, and to explore concepts such as ar- chive, memory, fragmentation and the revision of history. To do so, Mulet uses various pro- cedures, including wet collodion, ambrotypes and ferrotypes, and presents the visitor with a whole range of materials – photograms, cyanotypes, paper portraits – as well as graphic material and real objects collected on his travels: personal items, tools, volcanic material, fossils and plant samples.This project marks a new chapter in his career as a photogapher, though revisiting key themes of earlier projects, such as self-portraits, portraits, landscape photography and travel.
