Pierre Allain at Galerie Roger Tator
Whereas Pierre Allain’s “Cleaning soap Opera” might draw conceptual inspiration from the corporate-sponsored origins of that titular style, it’s the numb and haunted tone of his work that extra intently evokes the cleaning soap opera’s vacuum-like environment, with characters like coiffed prisoners pacing claustrophobic rooms in states of perpetual frustration, craving, and doom.
In an adjoining gallery area, three white obelisks stand alongside the partitions of a tiny grey-carpeted room. The sculptures—all titled Skins Display screen, 2023—are every coated in a stucco-like sprayable chemical known as Apromud P150, a superabsorbent polymer utilized in a wide range of hygienic and cleansing merchandise. These vampiric, minimalist cuboids actually suck the moisture out of the room.
Past the sculptures comes the muffled sound of Tip of My Tongue, 2022. Composed of audio clips lifted from an internet discussion board for individuals in quest of the forgotten motion pictures and TV exhibits that traumatized them as kids, the piece broadcasts feeble makes an attempt at crowd-sourcing closure by way of hazy descriptions of “a black display and a knocking, as if somebody had been contained in the TV,” or “a creepy rooster with a high-pitched voice cooking alphabet soup.” The surreal recollections, learn in an icy mantra by Allain, play quietly from a salvaged hospital intercom.
In Self-Analysis 1-9, 2022-23, the artist interprets flash images of a chrome steel sink—taken in a close-by bar the place he works part-time—right into a sequence of small graphite drawings. The squeaky-clean subject material is delicately unraveled by the meticulous exercise of Allain’s pencil. We’re left to ponder what different repetitive, anxious frequencies may hum beneath white noise.
— Ren Ebel