When Gertrude Stein wrote, ‘act as though there is no use in a centre’, she intended this positively. The works of Jean-Luc Moulène are similarly centre-less, without being obscure. Moulène’s exhibition at Galerie Greta Meert is a selection of his uncanny objects as well as two-dimensional experiments in colour pairings. His works hover between categories, like the sculpture Voïd (Paris, 2017) (2017), which resembles an overturned black Réne Magritte hat. Meanwhile, a number of abstract works seem like colour studies in which gold or silver leaves on panel alternate with bright colours, using cheap materials (like felt-tip marker) with expensive ones (gold and silver). Moulène’s sculptures are regularly enigmatic, and at times delightfully inscrutable: Méduse (Paris, 2018) (2018) is a bronze that is coloured an unreal blue patina; and the work Mais (Paris, 2018) (2018), meanwhile, is an oblong sculpture in which bead-like cold ridges show the outline of a cob of corn. Also on view is a promising selection of paintings by young artist Carlos Caballero, whose geometrical canvases pair abstract gestures with precise, figurative imagery.
- Pablo Larios