Loris Cecchini

Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris
*

Walking into the Parisian gallery, you are struck by a rather bizarre scene: the space is furnished like a modern office, with chairs, fans, trashcans, and tables covered by computers, printers, telephones, cables, and photocopiers.

But all these objects, that make up the usual “working landscape” of an employee, have undergone an amusing and alarming metamorphosis: although precisely true-to-life, they have all turned grey and bendy, deformed by gravitational force and have thus become impracticable.

Loris Cecchini references Claes Oldenburg’s sculptures, in turn inspired by Dalí’s deformed clocks, in order to elaborate an indefinite process of reality’s ironic transformation, putting into question the apparent functioning of rationality. The artist makes use of sophisticated techniques for molding urethane rubber in order to faithfully reproduce the objects that surround us, making them wholly anonymous thanks to their uniform color.

The total effect is playful but, at the same time, strangely melancholic. The concrete quality that is part of our daily lives and reassuringly tranquilizes us gently vanishes and the solidity of reality seems to slip away before our eyes.

The gallery/office’s surrealistic dimension is emphasized by the presence on the walls of a series of large digitally manipulated color photographs. In these works Cecchini also proffers scenes that take place in an office, but here the real and the pliable objects are mixed up and the images are overwhelmed by an extreme disorder.

In each one, we see a human figure captured either standing up, seated, or lying down, and at times caught in an improbable position. Most of all, though, we can identify certain animals, the creators of the destruction: pelicans and flamingos are perched on the tables, a kangaroo hops about, a rhinoceros ambles off apparently content with the result he has accomplished, a bear circles around curiously.

With this strange combination of elements, Cecchini brings to life an uncomfortable and fantastic encounter between nature and technological culture.




Francesco Poli
Translation by Amanda Coulson