Nicolas Momein's Sculptures Reveal the Soul of Objects

Nicolas Momein's exhibition 'Sacré Géranium' at Galerie White Project in Paris (September 12 – October 31, 2013) features fifty car windshields laid on the floor in a herringbone pattern that crack under visitors' weight, alongside reconfigured domestic objects like a compacted armchair and stacked slippers. Another work, 'Efficace,' consists of nine Provendi soaps shaped by their use in different settings. The artist's practice involves studying trivial, functional objects—from cow-shoeing equipment to bath towels—and learning the associated gestures and techniques through collaboration with workers and artisans. By modifying processes, changing scale, or adding constraints, he transforms objects into instruments that lose their original utility but gain new resonances. The exhibition runs concurrently with 'Rendez-vous 13' at the Institut d'art contemporain de Villeurbanne (September 10 – November 10, 2013). Critic Christophe Kihm connects Momein's approach to a 1938 anecdote where Oskar Fischinger told John Cage to 'reveal the soul of objects,' a concept Momein interprets materially, akin to the 'soul' (âme) in violin-making—a small wooden piece that tensions the instrument and allows vibration. Momein was born in 1980, lives and works in Geneva and Saint-Étienne, and was in residence at La Galerie, Centre d'art contemporain de Noisy-le-Sec from 2013–2014.