PARIS.- The mask is the ultimate anti-object. Semiologists would use the term deictic to describe it — the gesture of a finger pointing over there, somewhere else. Whether it belongs to a Greek tragedy performer, to a member of the Anonymous collective, to an immunocompromised citizen or to a Snapchat user, the mask designates something else than itself, and in so doing it also distinguishes iconophiles from iconoclasts. So, there are two options: will you believe what is represented on its illusionist surface, or will you try to take a peek behind the scenes, even if that means being at risk of succumbing to paranoia? Heads or tails, image or object: perhaps the impasse is due to wanting to stick too closely to the lost origin, to mourning some naked face.

It so happens that Ingrid Luche produces masks, and her ceramic masks raise their objectness as a standard. The Air de Paris gallery is showing around forty of them, displayed on the walls or placed on rails. We are finally looking at them for what they are, no longer considering them as mere signs. The works, which are from the “Beauty masks” series (2023-2024), were made using disposable beauty masks pressed onto layers of clay. The imprint of the synthetic fabric remains on the surface of these flexible faces, which come in a wide range of colours, depending on the glazing process and accidents. Each one of them has particular features, as subjective as a face’s thousand variations. Let’s face it: our masks and filters have become autonomous. Thus, no matter how many times we repeat “I’m not a cat” 1, our protest gets lost ricocheting off the surface of the ostentatious stoneware2.

“Now all our things (...) are likely to become evil dolls capable of biting with their sharp teeth” 3 , Fredric Jameson once wrote. Here we are: with Ingrid Luche, things bite and objects take on a life of their own. In addition to masks, her sixth solo exhibition at the gallery presents new pieces from her evolving series: “Bighands” (2022), “Moonstep” (2023) and her “Portes” [“Doors”] (since 2012). The title of the show draws from the first series, “La Porte (Dévoré)” [The Door (Devoured)]: a door that opens onto nothing, but which frames a toothed mouth. It no longer simply involves the infamous “hangar décoré”4 [“decorated warehouse”] by architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, but also an “evil doll” made of polystyrene, wood and aluminium. The medium and representation become one, and dualisms merge, devouring each other.

The new door (Austur-Indíafjelagið, 2024) presented by Ingrid Luche at the Air de Paris gallery is marked by the paradoxical materiality of her entire production. Here, the door is a chipboard bed base featuring a painted reproduction of a photograph taken in Reykjavik. More specifically, it is the entrance to an Indian restaurant, as the artist emphasises that “the first manifestations of globalisation are those of culinary culture”5 . The door embraces a touristic image that, once again, avoids the ordinary use of the sign-image. An image that works should encourage people to push open the door and eat a restaurant’s deceptively local cuisine. But that’s all there is here: the artisanal customising of the disposable dregs of worldwide discount, as part of a series that the artist calls “Chinoiseries”.

Ingrid Luche was born one year after the publishing of Jean Baudrillard’s Système des objets. In fact, Baudrillard’s scathing condemnation was already slightly anachronistic by the time she produced her first works in the early 1990s. While Baudrillard lamented the “tranquillity consecrated by distance from the world” due to disengaged consumerism6 , Luche produces by and for a society that no longer misses the original. Her object-works and sculpture-signs may display their DIY materiality and artisanal finish, but they fully belong to our current system of thought: that of connected objects which are all but lifeless7 , in the process of becoming automated, communicating with each other without the help of humans, and greedy for personal data. We often wear them close to our skin — at risk of being devoured by them.

Ingrid Luquet-Gad Translated by Callisto McNulty

Ingrid Luche’s research focuses on the sensitive perception of architecture and its reproduction through photographs and installations. Sometimes playing with the retinal persistence of places frequented or simply fantasized, her works constantly question our apprehension of spaces, notably by developing a form of intermediary temporality: a present that is no longer, a future that is already seen.

She develops a sculpture and installation’s work, related to the perception of space retouched by the memory. From the investigation to the reinvention of forms suitable for the citation of her sources, her works openly convoke those of the artists that nourish her projects Architectural, aerial or interplanetary spaces are then echoed in mediums that are familiar to us.

She has exhibited at Air de Paris, Paris (2019, 2015, 2011, 2007), at Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles (2018), at theMusée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2017, 1994), at the Triennale de Beaufort, Ostende (2015), at Von-der-Heydt-Museum Wuppertal (2014), at Vent des Forêts,Fresnes-au-Mont (2013), at the Transpalette - Centre d’artcontemporain, Bourges (2006), at the Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2014, 2011, 2006, 2002), at La Salle de Bains, Lyon (2003), at Osl Kunsthall, Oslo (2002), at the BF15, Lyon (2001), at MAMCO, Genève (2000), at the CNAP Villa Arson, Nice (1997, 1995)

1 Zoom Cat Lawyer” or “I’m Not a Cat” refers to an Internet meme. On 9 February 2021, a lawyer logged into Texas’ Judicial District Court, forgetting to disable the chat filter on his Zoom application. When he real-ised his mistake, he defended himself by saying “I’m not a cat”.
2 In 2016, the artist produced another similar ceramic masks series, “Masques arsoniens”.
3 Fredric Jameson, La totalité comme complot. Conspiration et paranoïa dans l’imaginaire contemporain, Paris, Les Prairies Ordinaires, 2007, p. 33. Translated by Callisto McNulty.
4 See Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, L’enseignement de Las Vegas, Bruxelles, Mardaga, 2008.
5 Interview with the artist, 1 July 2024. Translated by Callisto McNulty.
6 Jean Baudrillard, The consumer Society, London (Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publication, 1998). Available at https://monoskop.org/ images/d/de Baudrillard_Jean_The_consumer_society_myths_and_structures_1970.pdf
7 In relation to the ways in which they design everyday life, see: Adam Greenfield, Radical Technologies : The Design of Everyday Life (London: Verso Books, 2017).