Abigail Lane: The work that goes up in smoke

In a few strokes, a few notes, a few gestures, a few words, art has the genius to condense much more information and emotion than any other type of "speech". For yes, art is speech. Two, three shapes and as many colours are enough for it to speak to us.

Abigail Lane must be a great artist. Because with her, it's amazing what a pair of shoes, a lamp and a little smoke can tell us. This English artist, known for her original all-round approach, has acquired a multi-specialist experience that allows her to play with photography, wax casting, printing and sound as if they were complementary musical instruments. With brio.

She metamorphoses into a one-woman-band to play with all these registers in the conception and realisation of her installations. For You Know Who You Are, she had the idea of integrating a timer with a smoke machine. And she had to choose her bulb carefully, whose directional beam makes the ceiling light look like a flying saucer. The overall atmosphere of the installation becomes deliciously creepy like a standard minimalist torture room.

The empty shoes are arranged side by side as if inhabited by a specter that the smoke from them gives, if you will, body. Yes, we know who we are, Abigail. This immaterial being that aspires to rise even if it means burning its wings, which are useless in this kind of ascent anyway. Yes, we know who we are, each of us. There is no need to show it to us by painting our portraits. Thank you Abigail Lane for reminding us instead, as here, who we all are. Thank you art for whispering to us in a silent show that yes, we are all just mortals in the wrong place. That's nice.

Photo: Abigail Lane - You know who you are - 1999, installation at Galerie Chantal Crouset, Paris

RXM