Serena Carone likes to trick people. She started out by tricking the postal service by painting stamps, using a magnifying glass and a miniaturist’s brush, and putting them on letters she sent from abroad. Originally a way of relieving the boredom of sitting around in hotel rooms, these artworks seemed successful to her when they arrived safely at their destination, duly postmarked and thus approved by the relevant authorities. Next, she created three-dimensional trompe l’œil works by making cameras, phones, record players, and even a scooter using boxes of brand-name products. Then she moved on to metal, working with a soldering iron. And finally, after many attempts at tinkering with this and that, she discovered ceramics. Ever since Bernard Palissy we have known what a difficult medium ceramic is, especially when you want the earth that composes it to become both painting and sculpture—the ultimate deception. For a long time, Western art argued over the superiority of one or the other. The Italian Renaissance called this debate Paragone delle arti, asking whether sculpture or painting created a more successful illusion of reality—this principle that, from the time of ancient Greece, governed our aesthetics. Marcel Duchamp gave a radically new solution to the problem with his Large Glass, a transparent altarpiece standing up in space, a flat surface that can be perceived like a statue. In some way, Serena Carone has picked up on the Duchampian answer, including its humor; more precisely, she has put her own spin on it, reconciling the opposite parts in her own way, using her personal techniques of deception. With her octopi and her dogs as with her domestic disasters (a whole wonderfully represented reality that sinks, rips, collapses), she moves from the trivial to the metaphysical and from obviousness to a tour de force, compelling the viewer to put out a finger to touch the mystery, like doubting Thomas. Can ceramic turn into metal, paper, fur, or the flame of a portable stove? Serena Carone reminds us that one deception can still hide another. Welcome to the kingdom of false appearances.

• Serge Bramly

Courtesy Perrotin.