Grichka Commaret et Tohé Commaret — Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard, Paris
The Pernod Ricard Foundation presents Miss Recuerdo, a duo exhibition by Grichka and Tohé Commaret, artists and siblings, whose practices—though distinct and assertive—seem here to be brought together more in the name of a shared origin than through any real dialogue.
This project attempts to reach a certain accuracy, but it seems based on a questionable shortcut: using their familial bond and a shared film, Palma, as the main link between works whose strength lies precisely in their autonomy. It’s a curious curatorial choice, placing side by side two approaches without any real attempt at shared authorship. The scenography, subtle in its minimalism and contrasts, cannot make up for this lack of dialogue. In the absence of a truly structured curatorship, perhaps it’s within this very lack of articulation that a certain coherence can be found. Each work imposes its own conceptual structure onto a world it never loses tangible grip of. In Grichka Commaret’s work, we find painting imbued with urban habitat, with fixed structures—intercoms, doors, stairwells—that, paradoxically, seem to dissolve through accumulation. A plastic, almost serial enumeration, leaning toward a discreet surrealism beneath the multitude of aesthetic references he deploys. Neither motifs nor symbols, the elements align in a secret order, reinventing the idea of a place without function, emptied of use, carried by a memory no one shares.
In contrast, Tohé Commaret’s films radiate a superb gravity. 8, in particular, unfolds a vast sadness, a soft and slow drift through weary bodies, faces searching without asking. The notion of shifting—this waking dream, this sleepless escape—runs through the images like a silent directive. I don’t sleep, I dream. Atony that the artist’s camera mimics without fully embracing, letting attention settle on detail, on passage and stillness, on the aura of everyday gestures in a setting that feels more residual than residential.
Consistently avoiding the lure of romanticism, her films juggle between composed shots and random constructions, dodging the temptation to “make images” the moment it draws near. For while the signs of an urban reality—one the artist has clearly lived—are central to the action, they never become memorial markers. Instead, they redirect the autobiographical toward a more universal depiction of an arbitrary decorum. Gazes, movements—staged or precisely uncontrolled—become the true stakes of works that render them sublime without ever trying to idealize them.
A decisive encounter plays out in the void of these gazes, in the tired formulas spoken by her female characters: a cinema of torpor, withdrawal, exhaustion—not as affectation or pathos, but as a condition of existence. The adults appear hardened, wounded, frozen in a world whose rules escape them; the children are racked with fractures. And within this gently fractured theatre of the real, fiction becomes necessary—vital—even, as it’s the only way to truly reach it.
So, despite doubts about the relevance of pairing these artistic approaches that add up without converging, one can still find joy in a presentation that leaves both artists’ works the responsibility—and opportunity—of asserting their singularity even more.
Miss Recuerdo, Grichka Commaret and Tohé Commaret, Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard, 1, cours Paul Ricard, 75008 Paris, from February 18 to April 19, 2025, Tuesday to Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m
