Description
Révélations – Javier Viver (RM Editorial, 2015 / Collector's Edition 2013)
Révélations is a photobook by Spanish artist Javier Viver, edited in collaboration with Gonzalo Golpe and Horacio Fernández. Published by RM Editorial, this project is available in two versions:
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the 2015 offset edition, and
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the 2013 special collector's edition, numbered and signed.
Both versions are based on the famous Iconographie de La Salpêtrière, one of the first photographic archives in the field of clinical psychiatry.
The archive and its contemporary reinterpretation
The original La Salpêtrière project was led by Jean-Martin Charcot and funded by the French government in the late 19th century. Its purpose was to catalog the unclassifiable using new photographic and documentary techniques. In this process, the marginal—that which escaped the rational logic of modern progress—was measured, recorded, and classified with scientific rigor.
However, the introduction of photography added a new dimension: spectacle. The famous "Tuesday sessions" transformed the hospital into a veritable theater. There, patients and photographers collaborated in the staging of epileptic seizures, hysterical fits, or contortions induced by hypnosis, before the fascinated gaze of the cultural and scientific elites of the time.
The result was an unprecedented archive, a testament to the colonial spirit and disciplinary power of the 19th century. Through more than 4,000 photographs and 32 volumes published between 1875 and 1918, this documentary collection became an exploration of the limits of the human soul.
Javier Viver reviews this material from a critical and contemporary perspective, transforming the archive into a space for aesthetic and philosophical reflection. In Révélations, medical images become art, and documentation becomes an interpretation of the human condition.
This project was supported by the Botín Foundation as part of its program to support the creative work of former scholarship recipients.
Offset edition (2015)
The offset edition offers 288 pages and 255 photographs in 23.5 x 23.5 cm format.
Designed by Javier Viver, coordinated by La-Troupé, and printed by Brizzolis, it stands out for its high technical quality and careful graphic design. It is an essential publication for lovers of photography, contemporary art, and visual history.
Collector's Edition (2013)
The special collector's edition was published in 2013. It comes in a wooden box and includes an original photograph on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper, numbered and signed by the author (1/10).
It has 287 pages and 260 photographs in 24 x 24.5 cm format , and was coordinated by Siete de un Golpe and printed by Shanghai Jin Tian Printing.
This limited edition is an exclusive piece intended for collectors of contemporary art and fine art photography, a work that combines conceptual rigor with material delicacy.
