“Tour of the World” and “The Excursion” are both photographic serials by Jean Le Gac, a Parisian conceptual artist in his early forties. In each, apparent vacation snapshots are arranged in order and supplemented with texts, the com- bination creating novelettes “on location.” In “Tour of the World” a day-trip around Paris is accompanied by sardonic, oddly self-indulgent descriptions of places visited. In “The Excursion” an unrelated group of locales become the stop- ping points on a world tour illuminated by wry and ironic scrapbook captions. Le Gac is an artist whose narrative power adds an important dimension to his artistic choices.

—A.A.

 


(The Main Greenhouse in the “Jardin des Plantes” in Paris)

 

The virgin forest was closed to the public while the glass roof was being repaired.
Fortunately older art students, scattered behind palm trees, were painting from life, and watercolor and tropical humidity seemed to agree, and Mr. S . . . let us in.
  We went through the narrow tunnel in the mountain and came out behind the glass door which gives access to the desert climate of the Mexican border.

—Let’s make sure we look good on the photo . . . rather like notorious refugees whom political friends have put up in their hacienda.