The scene of the crime Rodolphe A. Reiss (1875-1929) WARNING: SOME OF THE IMAGES WHICH ARE PRESENTED MAY SHOCK. THE MUSEE DE L'ELYSEE SUGGESTS THAT SENSITIVE PEOPLE AND CHILDREN UNDER 14 SHOULD NOT VISIT THE EXHIBIT. Scientific police photographs are very rarely presented to the public, remaining stored for many years in confidential files because they transgress taboos when their subjects are violent death and crime. These pictures, taken almost a hundred years ago by Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, founder of the l'Institut de police scientifique of the Université de Lausanne, reveal their entire aesthetic dimension while retaining their intense emotional strength. As a forensic science pioneer, Reiss shows photographic skills which are unequalled in this field. As the investigators' artificial memory, the photographs were taken in a very formal style to document crime scenes and clues discovered as unemotionally as possible. They are all associated with Reiss's teaching or expert evaluations. They allow us to see unusual sites and environments and, paradoxically, are often formally very abstract. The boundary between reality and the imaginary remains unbroken here. Situated between the acts and their representation, these photographs are filled with unusual emotion due to the dramatic circumstances which they retrace. 120 pictures are presented in this exhibit, produced in collaboration with the l'Institut de police scientifique of the Université de Lausanne, which is celebrating the hundredth anniversary of its creation by Rodolphe Archibald Reiss.