The art of communication is not lost on Lucas Ajemian and Julien Bismuth. In fact, the artists and long-time collaborators decided to devote their latest exhibition, Les Tristes (opening tonight at Invisible-Exports) to just that—dialogue.

“As with a lot of our shows, we started off with a conversation or dialogue between us and since we’ve been sharing a studio for some time, even in our individual work, we’re sort of conversation partners for one another’s practices,” Bismuth explains as to how he and Ajemian developed the concept for Les Tristes, adding “with this show in particular we wanted to approach it as a dialogue in which we were communicating with one another and progressing toward something.”

Open through Mar. 28 at the Lower East Side gallery, Les Tristes is part object series, performance piece and filmed exhibition, which Ajemian and Bismuth say consists of projects one of them started individually, traded and allowed the other to collaborate on.

“There are a lot of correspondence letters you’ll see tacked to the wall,” Ajemian explains in description of the exhibition. “We’ve coupled those with these more gestural sculptures using found objects and paper mache and setting them in these physical situations. The continuance of those objects and the way they lean on each other is metaphorical for how we’re working together in a weird way.”

And the materials used for the show hold their own allusions of communication as well. Ajemian and Bismuth used computers, cell phones, printing machines and newspaper to create pieces for Les Tristes because they’re all forms of communication themselves.

“There are a couple things that keep coming back not necessarily as themes but rather foils in our work,” Bismuth explains. “Often times they’re banal things such as the newspaper or the way that information is disseminated through the media or phone or email. Just very common everyday experiences for how very simple things like communication take place now a days.”