Miss Recuerdo

Grichka Commaret is a painter, his sister Tohé, a videographer. They both grew up in the 1990s on 21 avenue Maximilien Robespierre in Vitry-sur-Seine, on the paved terrace (la dalle) to which part of their family had emigrated from Chile years before. This matricial space has played a central role in their respective bodies of work for several years now. Their childhood space has become an artistic interface that is both concrete and imaginary, in which their concerns converse with a certain complementarity: while Grichka’s painting focuses primarily on the spaces— corridors, lifts, interphones, grids—which contribute to the immutable design of the dalle, for her part, Tohé films the people who roam around it in search of signs. For both siblings, the almost archaeological observation of the location is coupled with an overinterpretation of some of the details and memories that compose it, a way of giving rise to fiction onscreen or surrealism on canvas. By way of shared motifs, the sister’s films and the brother’s paintings seem at times to communicate secretly: on the canvas a mouth approaches the halo of a streetlamp, onscreen a girl consumes light; an eye painted in acrylic opens, in the film its pupil is red; figures appear in succession as the elevator rises towards the upper floors 8… 9…11… 25…

Designed as a conversation between their respective works, the Miss Recuerdo exhibition is held on the occasion of the production of their first together, Palma, and presents two excerpts from it. Shot in Vitry-sur-Seine, the film probes a disappearance: that of Paloma, a popular figure from the neighbourhood who has gone, leaving an enigmatic message behind. Her departure questions the possibility of emancipating oneself from a familial and social bubble, in which feelings of alienation and deep attachment coexist.

The works presented alongside Palma have mostly been devised and produced within the same timeframe as the film: between late 2024 and the first weeks of 2025. In this sense they are organically linked to the film and influenced by this experience of closeknit collaboration. Surpassing their usual dimensions, some of Grichka Commaret’s canvases derive their format and character as objects with forgotten functions directly from reality. The films Pukyu, Mustard and 8 introduce us to the mazelike dimension of Tohé Commaret’s filmic thought: screens and narratives are imbricated, rumours circulate and the actresses garder of her entourage resurface from one film to the next, embodying figures connected to impalpable realities. From the set of Palma to the exhibition rooms of the Fondation Pernod Ricard, CluelesS—the designer duo formed by Saloméja Jacquet and Clara Stengel—participates in the spatial composition of Miss Recuerdo. By accentuating the narrowness, ambiguity, or liminality of the spaces, their proposition contributes to the unfolding of a magical realism that underpins Grichka and Tohé Commaret’s productions.

Elsa Vettier
Curator of the exhibition

Grichka Commaret and Tohé Commaret, Palma, 2025. Courtesy of the artists and Anna Lena Films.