Trapped in Kubrickland

If you ever wanted to know what it would feel like to be inside a Stanley Kubrick film, this futuristic installation by the young French artist Loris Gréaud offers a close approximation. You enter a squareish black room through an automatic vertical shutter which opens and closes swiftly and erratically. A carpet with a complicated geometric design, outlined in white, stretches under your feet. In the centre of the room, globules of translucent resin hang down — like the pupae of unhatched aliens — and from them comes the sound of an operetta.

Periodically, three waiters appear and serve black champagne. It’s like the bar scene in The Shining meets the last bit of 2001: A Space Odyssey but, since it’s contemporary art, it’s partly about making better worlds (utopias) and partly about itself — everything refers to the construction of a new studio for the artist.

Despite the solipsism of Cellar Door — a Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art") about the space where work will be created — Gréaud is in the vanguard of contemporary art. He shares a fascination with utopian architecture and a nostalgia for modernism with Liam Gillick and Philip Parreno but his work has none of their dryness. Instead, Gréaud creates all-encompassing interior spaces, like Mike Nelson, Gregor Schneider and Christopher Büchel — environments as seductive as the virtual spaces of video games.

Given the power of his imagination, it’s a shame that the installation consists of three almost identical rooms. Sure, the repetition creates the mesmerising effect of being in a dream from which one cannot escape, but when an important artist gets a major central London space, he should probably be creating his effects with variety, not monotony.

Until 22 June. Information: 020 7930 3647, www.ica.org.uk.

Loris Greaud: Cellar Door (Once Is Always Twice)
ICA Gallery
The Mall, SW1Y 5AH