Virginie Yassef and Vincent Lamouroux

In their current solo shows, Virginie Yassef and Vincent Lamouroux may share the gallery, as well as an interest in extraterrestrial exploration and science fiction, but their formal investigations are quite distinct. Yassef privileges the potential for narrative and the possibility of constructing worlds out of fragments of images, sounds, or shapes. Lining the walls in the main gallery is a photographic frieze of her Scénario-fantômes (Phantom Scenarios), 2006–2007, enigmatic snapshots of urban life that are framed in pairs or in threes and assembled in varying sequences. This serves as a strong visual counterpoint to the sculpture Airedificio (Airbuilding), 2007, a spaceshiplike gray architectural model with translucent green windows like fly eyes; it balances magically on a pole. The title of her exhibition, “Alloy,” refers to the eponymous 2007 video opera, shown on a flat-screen monitor. While a boy manipulates chunky magnetic objects on steel-gray platforms known as the “Badlands” (also present in the exhibition), music and a text by Julien Bismuth, inspired by Planet of the Apes, evoke other worlds and journeys through time and space.

At the gallery’s entrance, Lamouroux’s opening gambit is a vinyl decal of the Sculptor constellation (La constellation du sculpteur, 2006–2007), named by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille during the seventeenth century. An adjacent space contains a set of white sculptures: Scope 01, 2007, which recalls a gigantic loupe or miniaturized observatory, and Surround, 2007, five vertical elements hung like mute speakers that seem to emanate from the walls. Black-and-white ink-jet prints of celestial explosions (Gas and Dust, 2007) mounted in deep frames throw a bit of chaos into this order. While there is certainly no dearth of artists interested in sci-fi, outer space, and architecture, Yassef and Lamouroux nevertheless manage to revitalize that old chestnut “The sky’s the limit.”