Adel Abdessemed at David Zwirner, London

Adel Abdessemed: Le Vase abominable
David Zwirner, London
February 22 - March 28, 2013

ADEL ABDESSEMED

Cri, 2013 (detail)

Ivory. 56 inches (142 cm)

Courtesy Adel Abdessemed and David Zwirner, New York / London

David Zwirner presents an exhibition of new works by ADEL ABDESSEMED, on view in recently opened London gallery. Le Vase abominable is the artist's third solo show with David Zwirner since joining the gallery in 2008. The artist's previous solo exhibitions at David Zwirner, New York, were Adel Abdessemed : RIO (2009) and Adel Abdessemed: Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? (2012).

Across a wide range of media, Adel Abdessemed transforms well-known materials and imagery into charged artistic declarations. The artist pulls freely from myriad sources–personal, historical, social, and political–to create a visual language that is simultaneously rich and economical, sensitive and controversial, radical and mundane.

In this exhibition of new work, cultural references become inseparable from themes of war, violence, and spectatorship. The ground floor presents the eponymous Le Vase abominable, a two-meter tall copper pot positioned on top of a replica of a large explosive device, a carefully crafted bomb, whose relationship to the vase remains ambiguous. Nearby is a group of five smaller, similarly shaped vases each made from a different material, including gold, gum, and salt. Their repetitive yet incongruous appearance highlights a recurring dichotomy in the artist's work between décor and fetish, which seems further intensified by the materials used. The vases are juxtaposed by a large drawing, The Twang of the void, which presents a throne in the midst of a barren landscape. Based on the actual throne used by Queen Elizabeth II, its stark, lone presence stands out against the opulence it traditionally represents.

On the floor above, a group of works takes their point of departure in the well-known reportage photograph of children fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Made entirely in mammoth ivory, Cri depicts the young girl in the center of the image, running naked with her arms outstretched and her mouth open in a scream. Her life-sized figure is accompanied by a series of drawings featuring soldiers in full gear–they may represent those surrounding the children in the photograph, or any other armed conflict. An animation, entitled State, is projected onto all four walls in a separate room and features labyrinth-like drawings which recall Republican prisoner protests at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fighting for their right to wear their own clothes on the basis that they were not convicted criminals, they wrapped themselves in blankets rather than the provided uniforms and refused to leave their cells, which in turn were not sufficiently cleaned. They consequently smeared the walls with their own excrement, beginning the so-called "dirty protests."

Born in 1971 in Constantine, Algeria, Adel Abdessemed studied at the École des beaux-arts de Batna and the École des beaux-arts d’Alger, Algiers (1987-1994), before traveling to France where he attended the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon (1994-1998). He was an artist-in-residence at the Cité internationale des Arts de Paris in 1999-2000, and the following year at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center’s International Studio Program in Long Island City, New York. After living in New York, the artist moved to Paris, then to Berlin, then back to New York. He now lives and works in Paris.

In 2012, his work was the subject of a major solo exhibition at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Adel Abdessemed Je suis innocent, which was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the museum and Steidl. Also in 2012 was a special presentation at the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar, France, which displayed the artist’s Décor (2011-2012), four life-size

DAVID ZWIRNER, LONDON
24 Grafton Street, London, W1S 4EZ
www.davidzwirner.com

Adel Abdessemed: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf at David Zwirner, New York

Adel Abdessemed: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf 
David Zwirner, New York
February 17 - March 17, 2012

ADEL ABDESSEMED

Décor, 2011-2012 (detail). Razor wire.

Four elements, each: 86 x 70 x 24 inches (218.4 x 177.8 x 61 cm)

David Zwirner presents an exhibition of new works by ADEL ABDESSEMED. Spanning both of the gallery's 525 and 533 West 19th Street spaces, Who's afraid of the big bad wolf is Abdessemed's second solo exhibition since he joined the gallery in 2008.

Across a wide range of media, Adel Abdessemed transforms well-known materials and imagery into charged artistic declarations. The artist pulls freely from myriad sources–personal, historical, social, and political–to create a visual language that is simultaneously rich and economical, sensitive and controversial, radical and mundane.

The exhibition brings together recent works that revolve around the themes of war, violence, and spectatorship. The 525 gallery space presents works grouped by Adel Abdessemed as primarily concerned with the dichotomy between meaning and matter: they include Décor, which presents four life-size sculptures of the crucified Jesus made entirely from razor wire. Modeled after German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald's Crucifixion (a part of his Isenheim Altarpiece from 1506-1515), the contorted, twisted figures hang against an otherwise naked wall without the structure of the cross itself. Creating a formal juxtaposition between the hazardous qualities of the razor wire and its abstract appearance, Décor enhances the connotations of physical suffering implicit in the subject matter, while the repetitive appearance of the sculptures creates a distinctively decorative effect.

Occupying the floor in front of Décor is a group of over thirty larger-than-life-sized microphones made from hand-blown glass. Perhaps an allegory for the ideal of transparent communication and open dialogue, the title of the work, L'avenir est aux fantômes (The future belongs to ghosts), is a reference to the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida, whose characterization of a variety of phenomena as "ghosts" was highlighted in Ken McMullen's film Ghost Dance, 1983, featuring Jacques Derrida himself. Also on view nearby is La Grande Parade, a large installation of Abdessemed's drawings of porcupines, weasels, tortoises, and other reptiles. Executed in the artist's loose style, the animals have sticks of dynamite strapped to them as if presenting an allusion to modernday kamikazes.

In the 533 gallery space, which brings together works Adel Abdessemed has characterized as primarily concerned with substantive themes of hope, death, memory, and compulsion, viewers first encounter Hope, an installation of a boat found abandoned on a beach in the Florida Keys. Used illegally to transport immigrants in pursuit of a new life to the United States, often compromising their safety in the process, the boat is presented as it was discovered, but has been filled to the brim with black bags cast in polyurethane resin from actual, stuffed garbage sacks. While a crude and provocative analogy between the trash and the boat’s former passengers appears explicit, Hope presents an art historical reference to Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich's apocalyptic painting from 1823-1824, The Wreck of the Hope, featuring a capsized vessel in a sea of icebergs.

Also on view in the 533 gallery space: Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, a wall installation of taxidermy animals, including wolves, which takes its title from the famous soundtrack to Disney's 1933 cartoon The Three Little Pigs as well as from Barnett Newman's version of the phrase for his series of paintings from the late 1960s, Adel Abdessemed's previous work with preserved animals, the installation juxtaposes the age-old practice of taxidermy, used for scientific as well as for decorative purposes, with a reference to meaningless slaughter and war–the animals in the installation have subsequently been burnt and are a monotonous black while the overall dimensions correspond to Pablo Picasso's Guernica, 1937, a now classic representation of the effects of war on civilians. Near the installation, Mémoire presents a video showing a baboon spelling out the words "Tutsi" and "Hutu" on a white wall, which refer to the names of the opposing ethnic groups involved in the 1994 Rwandan civil war and the ensuing devastating genocide.

Coup de tête depicts the moment French footballer Zinedine Zidane headbutted Italian Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final in Germany in a heated response to a verbal insult by the latter. While it presents a realistic rendition of the event, Abdessemed's slightly larger-thanlife, resin sculpture is not so much a commemoration of the incident itself as it is a testament to the emotions and underlying narratives which often accompany major sports events. By distilling the moment of Zidane's much scrutinized violent impulse, Adel Abdessemed's work draws attention to the verbal insults and provocations that often flourish in the sport without any visible manifestation, and further emphasizes the obsessive interest in drama that lies beyond the game itself. As such, it reverberates with the underlying theme of the exhibition, which is concerned with familiar manifestations of aggression and violence. Drawing on a multitude of seemingly converse and often visually spectacular references and symbols, Abdessemed highlights the interconnectedness of innate aspects of human behavior, while at the same time challenging passive modes of spectatorship.

ADEL ABDESSEMED: Short biography

Born in Constantine, Algeria, Adel Abdessemed attended the École des Beaux-Arts d'Alger, Algiers, and the École nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, France. He had his first American gallery exhibition, RIO, at David Zwirner in 2009.

A major survey of the artist's work is planned for October 2012 at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue. Abdessemed’s work was recently the subject of solo exhibitions at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, and the Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto (both 2010). Other notable solo exhibitions include the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2009); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Le MagasinCentre National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble, France (both 2008); and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (2007).

The artist has participated in a number of significant group exhibitions, including the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale; In Praise of Doubt, Punta della Dogana, Venice (both 2011); Aichi Triennale 2010, Nagoya, Japan (2010); Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, Venice; 10th Lyon Biennale, France; 10th Istanbul Biennial; 10th Havana Biennial (all 2009); 7th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju, South Korea (2008); and the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007).

His work is represented in prominent collections internationally, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and the François Pinault Foundation, Venice. He lives and works in Paris.

A comprehensive monograph of Adel Abdessemed's work as been prepared by David Zwirner in collaboration with Pier Luigi Tazzi and Steidl.

DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK
525 and 533 West 19th Street New York, NY
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Adel Abdessemed at David Zwirner, NYC

Adel Abdessemed: Rio
David Zwirner, New York
April 3 - May 9, 2009

ADEL ABDESSEMED

Usine, 2009 (video still).

Video projection. 1:27 minute (loop), color, sound. Dimensions vary.

Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner

The show is called Rio, meaning river. I observe the world with the same fascination that my daughter, Rio, contemplates the big animals in the zoo that are thirsty and hungry.

–Adel Abdessemed

David Zwirner presents the first American gallery exhibition by ADEL ABDESSEMED. Encompassing all three of the main gallery spaces at David Zwirner, RIO features sculptures, videos, photographs, and drawings made from 2008 to 2009.

The installation of the show envisages a maze of main rooms, corridors, and entrances that collectively create a complex yet harmonious environment. Visitors are given the possibility of several different journeys though the spaces, while individual works still remain autonomous.

The massive sculpture, Telle mère tel fils (2008), engulfs one of the galleries (519 West 19th Street). Over sixty-five feet long, the work is a braid of three airplanes, made of their original cockpits and tailfins, while the fuselages are reconstructed in soft felt filled with air.

The center gallery space (525 West 19th Street) hosts a number of works. In Usine (2009), Abdessemed films an encounter between mammals, reptiles, and insects. Revealed in a quick minute-and-a-half video loop is both nature and mankind's propensity toward survival and destruction. Also presented is Music box (2009), a sculpture made of a steel oil barrel, which functions as a real musical instrument. Stationary pins on a revolving cylinder strike the teeth of a metal comb, producing sounds that fill the room: music from Richard Wagner's Die Walküre (The Valkyrie). Prostitute (2008) addresses the theme of religion. Three prostitutes each meticulously hand wrote, page by page, one of three religious texts: the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran. These leather-bound manuscripts are displayed as closed books in stacked shopping bags, the completed activity quietly offered for viewers' consumption. Another work, made with razor wire–like the previous work Wall drawing (2006) where Abdessemed used razor wire in the form of simple circles that hung on the wall–is Soccer ball (2009), placed on the gallery's floor.

Since moving to New York in 2008, the city has become part of Adel Abdessemed's work, and seen in the same gallery space is Lincoln (2009). Captured on a busy street corner, this photograph depicts a statute of the president, holding up and supporting Abdessemed. Lincoln echoes an earlier work, Nafissa (2006), where Abdessemed is seen on a Paris street being held in his mother's arms. Presented in the third main gallery space (533 West 19th Street) is the seminal work, Practice zero tolerance (retournée) (2008), a large-scale terra cotta sculpture molded on an impounded car from the insurrections in the banlieues of Paris in 2005. As if upended by protestors, the vehicle's charred chassis rests on its side, a symbol not only of the civil unrest in France, but of car bombings and suicide attacks around the globe.

Many situations created by Adel Abdessemed are based on singular and deliberate actions, or, as he calls them, acts, which are testified, more than documented, with videos and photographs, and are often later juxtaposed with a sculptural remainder from the action itself. The same gallery space is occupied by a group of works that represent this structure. In Grand canyon (2008), Adel Abdessemed dangles from a precipice over the canyon's abyss and carves the single word "DEATH" into the underside of the boulder from which he is hanging. The two-part work consists of a photograph of the artist's action, along with the rock, relocated afterwards to the gallery. Grand canyon correlates to a recent work, Also sprach Allah (2008), shown in a group exhibition at David Zwirner last summer. In this work, Adel Abdessemed is repeatedly catapulted by a manned blanket toss in order to reach a carpet mounted on the ceiling. With each toss in the air, he adds a single mark on the carpet, eventually spelling out "Also Sprach Allah," which translates to "Thus Spoke Allah" and refers directly to Also Sprach Zarathustra by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. This action–demonstrating how a group can propel an individual to take action in the name of God–is documented in a video that accompanies the finished, framed carpet.

Reminiscent of Helikoptère (2007), is Enter the circle (2009). In this new work, Adel Abdessemed is suspended upside down from a helicopter hovering fifty feet above the ground. In a motion that is both jagged yet fluid, he draws a complete circle with oil pastel onto a large panel. For the two-part video, Les ailes de dieu I (2009) and Les ailes de dieu II (2009), a man without arms is suspended from a helicopter to make a drawing with his feet, while in the other video, a man without legs draws with his hands as he hangs down.

Elsewhere at David Zwirner is The sea, another video that captures similarly intense physical movements, where Abdessemed balances on a slab of wood on rough ebbing and flowing ocean waves. Other photographs include the family portrait Saturday (2008), where his young daughters and wife take dog skeletons for a walk down a New York City street, and Jasmine (2009), a street scene where a mother dog protects her multiple puppies.

Among new drawings made for the exhibition at David Zwirner are Untitled (I take care of History) (2009) and The best, the most, the only (2009), which consists of charcoal drawings (of hands and animals) inside notebooks, placed on music stands.

ADEL ABDESSEMED

Born in 1971 in Constantine, Algeria, Adel Abdessemed attended the École des Beaux-Arts d’Alger and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. He currently lives and works in New York. In 2008, MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts hosted a solo exhibition of his work, organized by Jane Farver and accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with essays by Farver, Tom McDonough, and Pier Luigi Tazzi, and an interview with Noam Chomsky. Abdessemed recently has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy (2009), Le Magasin - Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France (2008), and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2007). He recently was included in the 7th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju, Korea (2008) and the 52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2007). His work is in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Fondation François Pinault, Venice, Italy; Fonds régional d’art contemporain Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France; Fonds régional d’art contemporain des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France; Fundación Montenmedio Arte Contemporáneo, Vejer de la Frontera, Spain; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland; Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.

DAVID ZWIRNER
519, 525 & 533 West 19th Street New York, NY
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