He met his wife in a bar in Lyon called L'Antidote in the mid-1990s, an episode represented in the small replica of the venue in a vitrine in the exhibition at MAC in Lyon.
If the collapse of the machine and the first Big War at the beginning of the 20th Century contributed in no small part to the establishment of an art that was suddenly provoking and difficult to look at, the availability of images from the war front in the 1990s made the same process impossible. There is little point in trying to tackle brutality by denouncing it via a series of trite statements or graphic imagery. Adel Abdessemed stated about his work «I think my work is actually positive. The world is violent – not me».[4]
Abdessemed's life-size sculptural variations of iconic images, such as the nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc (nicknamed 'the Napalm Girl') running away naked from an explosion throughout the Vietnam War in 1972 or the French football player Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi during the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final (Headbutt) are only two examples of how the immediacy of such moments take on fresh meaning when solidified in a form designed to make them still and everlasting. And even in those moments when the relationship between subject and rendition is a bit more fluid, as for example with the combination of the Antonio Canova-inspired sculpture group Is Beautiful with the terracotta-made, hard working men depicted in Sham, the outcome does not seem to change. This is not a literal representation of reality, but rather a sublimation of iconic images to art that takes place.[5]
Adel Abdessemed is known to have a special way to laugh. While studying art in Algeria, one of his professors defined it 'The Devil's Laugh'.[6]
Don't Trust Me, Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, US.
Drawing for Human Park, Le Magasin - Centre national d'art contemporain de Grenoble, France.
2007: Dead or Alive, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York, US.
2006 : Practice Zero Tolerance, La Criée, centre d'art contemporain, Rennes et Fonds régional d'art contemporain d'Île-de-France-Le Plateau, Paris, France.
2004: Le Citron et le lait, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland.
Habibi, Fonds régional d'art contemporain Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France.
2003:
Nuit, Galleria Laura Pecci, Milan, Italy
Quarta Estacio Benifallet-Vassivière, Centre international d'art et du paysage de l'île de Vassivière, France
2002: Adel Abdessemed, Institute of Visual Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, US
2001:
Adel Abdessemed, Galleria Laura Pecci, Milan, Italy
2015 : Retour à Berratham, Ballet Preljocaj, choreography and staging: Angelin Preljocaj, text: Laurent Mauvignier, scenography: Adel Abdessemed, Cour d'honneur du Palais des papes, Festival d'Avignon, France.
Pallaksh Pallaksh (I don't know just where I'm going), Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Restless Earth: Triennale de Milan, Nicola Trussardi Foundation, Milan, Italy.
2016:
30th Anniversary, Alfonso Artiaco Gallery, Naples, Italy.
The End of the World, Centro Pecci, Prato, Italy.
Miracle Marathon, Serpentine Galleries, Second Home, London, United Kingdom.
: Dancing with Myself. Selbstporträt und Selbsterfindung. Werke aus der Sammlung Pinault. Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.
The New Human, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Cher(e)s ami(e)s. Nouvelle présentation des collections contemporaines. Hommage aux donateurs, Musée national d'art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
Souviens-toi du temps présent, Centre d'art Le Lait, Albi, France.
Money, Good and Evil: A Visual History of the Economy, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in collaboration with the Casino, Baden-Baden, Germany.
Magie und Macht. Von fliegenden Teppichen und Drohnen, MARTa Herford, Germany.
De Warhol à Basquiat. Les chefs d'oeuvre de la collection Lambert, Musée de Vence –Fondation Émile Hugues, Vence, France.
Je Tu Il Elle, Dvir Gallery, Brussels, Belgium.
Do It in Arabic, Sharjah Art Foundation's Bait Al Shamsi, United Arab Emirates.
2015:
Retour sur l'abîme – L'art à l'épreuve du génocide, Musées de Belfort, France.
Drawing: The Bottom Line, S.M.A.K. Museum of Contemporary Art, Gent, Belgium.
PICASSO.MANIA, Grand Palais, Paris, France.
Le Cambrioleur, Riga Art Space, Riga, Latvia.
Patrice Chéreau / Un musée imaginaire, Collection Lambert, Avignon, France.
56th Venice Biennial.
2014:
About Town, Ikon in partnership with Hippodrome Plus, Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
The Desire for Freedom, Art in Europe since 1945, MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków, Kraków, Poland.
Narcisse, l'image dans l'onde, Fondation François Schneider, Wattwiller, France.
Adel Abdessemed: Otchi Tchiornie / L'Antidote. Lyon, Musée d'Art Contemporain, 2018. Texts by Eric de Chassey, Denis Gielen, Donatien Grau, Mark Nash, Paul Ardenne, Kamel Daoud, Thierry Raspail, Michele Robecchi and Octavio Zaya.
Adel Abdessemed: Conflit. Montréal, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2017. Texts by Nathalie Bondil and Vincent Lavoie.
Adel Abdessemed: Bristow, published by Hannah Barry, Donatien Grau, Hans Ulrich Obrist, London, 2016
Adel Abdessemed : Works 1988-2015, Foreword by Pier Luigi Tazzi. Introduction by Schwed. Texts by Hans Belting, Giovanni Careri, Julia Kristeva, Tom McDonough, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jacques Rancière, et al. Koenig Books, London, 2016
Adel Abdessemed Par, Paris, Manuella éditions, 2015. Texts by Hans Belting, Emanuele Coccia, Elisabeth de Fontenay, Julia Kristeva, Tom McDonough, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jacques Rancière, Shva Salhoov
Adel Abdessemed. Jalousies – complicités avec Jean Nouvel, Paris, Éditions de l'Amateur / Collection Lambert, 2015. Correspondence between Jean Nouvel and Adel Abdessemed.
Adel Abdessemed. From Here to Eternity. New York, Venus Over Los Angeles, 2015. Text by Francesco Bonami.
Adel Abdessemed. Dessins. Paris, Éditions Dilecta, 2015. Text by Jean-Jacques Aillagon.
Adel Abdessemed. Palace. Malaga, CAC, 2015. Texts by Fernando Francés and Alberto Ruiz Samaniego.
Adel Abdessemed. Solo.Paris, Yvon Lambert, 2014. Letters from Hélène Cixous to Adel Abdessemed.
Adel Abdessemed. Mon Enfant. Tel-Aviv, Dvir Gallery, 2014. Text by Shva Saloon.
Adel Abdessemed. L'âge d'or. Doha, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art / Silvana Editoriale, 2013. Texts by Abdellah Taïa, Pier Luigi Tazzi, Angela Mengoni and interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Adel Abdessemed Je suis innocent. Paris, Centre Pompidou / Steidl, 2012. Foreword by Alfred Pacquement. Texts by Emmanuel Alloa, Patricia Falguières, Pamela M. Lee, Tom McDonough and Philippe-Alain Michaud.
Adel Abdessemed, Les ai PS1 MoMA, les de dieu / Le ali di dio. Turin, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, 2009. Contributions by Francesco Bonami, Edi Muka and Massimiliano Gioni.
Adel Abdessemed, Situation and Practice. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2009. Contributions by Jane Farver, Tom McDonough, and Noam Chomsky.
Adel Abdessemed. Zürich, JRP Ringier, 2010, text by Larys Frogier.(ISBN978-3-03764-109-5)
Silent Warriors, London/Cologne, Parasol Unit/König, 2010. Contributions by Ziba Ardalan, Gilanne Tawadros and Guy Tortosa.
Décor. Paris, Éditions Xavier Barral, 2012. Contributions by François Pinault, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, Frédérique Goerig-Hergott, Eric de Chassey and Giovanni Careri
Adel Abdessemed Je suis innocent. Cologne/Paris, Steidl/Centre Pompidou, 2012. Contributions by Philippe-Alain Michaud, Emmanuel Alloa, Hou Hanru, Pamela M. Lee, Tom McDonough and Patricia Falguières
L'âge d'or. Mathaf/Silvana, Doha/Milan, 2013 : book designed by M/M (Paris). Contributions by Abdellah Karroum, Pier Luigi Tazzi, Angela Mengoni, Abdellah Taïa, and an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Media related to Adel Abdessemed at Wikimedia Commons
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