JEAN-PAUL ALBINET — Invitation for a soirée. Paris, 30 September 1988

Paris, 30 September 1988. 15 × 15 cm closed; translucent outer sheet 15 × 30 cm unfolded. Printed translucent paper folded around a separate barcode card. Numbered 9/75 in pencil.

Condition: Very good. Light age toning, minor handling and faint surface marks.

Issued for an evening held on 30 September 1988 at 13 rue Simon-Dereure, Paris. The invitation is constructed in two layers: a 15 × 30 cm sheet of translucent paper carries the date, address and RSVP details and folds around a separate 15 × 15 cm card printed with an enlarged barcode.

The practical information is therefore not placed beside the image but directly over it. The barcode remains visible beneath the translucent wrapper; when opened, the administrative text separates from the coded image it temporarily covers. The verso identifies the object as a limited edition after an original by Jean-Paul Albinet, “composed of the first data from cause to effect.”

Albinet had co-founded UNTEL with Philippe Cazal and Alain Snyers, working with materials and communication systems drawn from everyday urban life. By the late 1980s, logos, advertising graphics and barcodes were becoming central to his work; the date of this invitation places it directly within that transition.

A social invitation, a numbered edition and a printed code occupy the same object. The translucent wrapper does not conceal the card beneath it; it changes how the information is read.

Ships flat, securely backed and tracked.