Tronche / Gills Alien (Paris, May 2014)

Waxed concrete forms lie on the ground, arranged on neatly folded blue blankets. As we pause, we gradually see distorted, monstrous faces emerging. And so we should: the sculptor Jean-Luc Moulène has cast concrete into turned upside down silicone masks, the type once sold in stores specialising in disguises, practical jokes and novelty items. Once filled with concrete, the mask swells to counterbalance the weight of the material, sometimes it collapses and falls (Moon face), compressing the shape of the head, like discarded construction waste, which contrasts with the usual attractive traits of artistic representation. With humour and irony, the artist conjures up inturn the idea of death masks, decapitated heads, museum archives and post-human science fiction.