Adel Abdessemed
02 Apr - 25 Jun 2011
ADEL ABDESSEMED
NU
2 April - 25 June, 2011
Adel Abdessemed has emerged in recent years on the international scene as one of the most emblematic artists of the early 21st century. His work deals with questions of meaning and events through philosophical and aesthetic perspectives, which he approaches with a variety of media. We also witness metaphysical outbreaks and a constant willingness to convert objects, texts and acts into high quotient symbolic metaphors.
The title of Abdessemed’s new exhibition at Dvir Gallery is French for "naked", though it sounds familiar in Hebrew too, as when you inquire about something expectantly and wait for a reply. Continuing this logic, the artist constantly lays bare the contradictions and avatars of contemporary society, a culture overwhelmed by violence but still somehow progressing in the pure avant-garde sense. Four new works comprise this new show in the space of Dvir Hangar in Jaffa.
The video "Odradek" is beyond an allusion to that strange, flat, star-shaped spool, which seems to have thread wound around it. The subject is simultaneously a creature, as described in Kafka's short story Die Sorge des Hausvaters ("The Cares of a Family Man”, 1919) that gave rise to passionate exegeses from Walter Benjamin, Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizeck. Eight women are unveiled stripping a thread of camel white wool, initially dressed and then totally naked. The artist marked his signature on their bodies before exposing them. The women undress, moving and swaying leisurely with shaking movements, typical of oriental dances, expressing a genuine sense of affection and establishing a space of latent eroticism. But when the yarn is completely unwound, we find the faces still hidden behind wrestling masks, as if to undo the very idea of spectacle in which gestures are made "at the height of their meaning", to paraphrase Roland Barthes. Many references collide in this work, but the tribute to Manzoni is probably the most remarkable. A cardboard box is displayed nearby, which collects the unraveled wool, as well as the masks, into one heap. The accessories have become relics, objects of memory in an accelerated Archaeology.
"Fatalité" ("Fate") is a set of seven dynamic microphones on tripods, but the object itself is made of pure transparent glass from Murano. This device for vocal amplification is no longer active, but the artist’s conversion still gives it other symbolic virtues. This post-pop object, whose ubiquity in everyday life is obvious, becomes the most direct and incisive spokesman. From now on, there is nothing to hide.
The third piece, "Grève mondiale", also has a French title but this time it is meant to be taken literally. Written by hand in capital letters, endeavoring to keep the arm lifted, the highlight moves from the word "general" to the password "global", because the protest nowadays can no longer be other than global. It is as though the last revolution can, and should, question the whole universe. The white neon letters are there to teach us and to beat the recall.
"Color Jasmin" is another white neon piece, this time written in both English and French. The work plays its part in a tautological line, but refers obviously to recent political events that have propelled the jasmine, next to the word revolution in a news insurgency.
Ami Barak
Adel Abdessemed
Born in 1971, Constantine, Algeria.
Lives and works in Paris
NU
2 April - 25 June, 2011
Adel Abdessemed has emerged in recent years on the international scene as one of the most emblematic artists of the early 21st century. His work deals with questions of meaning and events through philosophical and aesthetic perspectives, which he approaches with a variety of media. We also witness metaphysical outbreaks and a constant willingness to convert objects, texts and acts into high quotient symbolic metaphors.
The title of Abdessemed’s new exhibition at Dvir Gallery is French for "naked", though it sounds familiar in Hebrew too, as when you inquire about something expectantly and wait for a reply. Continuing this logic, the artist constantly lays bare the contradictions and avatars of contemporary society, a culture overwhelmed by violence but still somehow progressing in the pure avant-garde sense. Four new works comprise this new show in the space of Dvir Hangar in Jaffa.
The video "Odradek" is beyond an allusion to that strange, flat, star-shaped spool, which seems to have thread wound around it. The subject is simultaneously a creature, as described in Kafka's short story Die Sorge des Hausvaters ("The Cares of a Family Man”, 1919) that gave rise to passionate exegeses from Walter Benjamin, Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizeck. Eight women are unveiled stripping a thread of camel white wool, initially dressed and then totally naked. The artist marked his signature on their bodies before exposing them. The women undress, moving and swaying leisurely with shaking movements, typical of oriental dances, expressing a genuine sense of affection and establishing a space of latent eroticism. But when the yarn is completely unwound, we find the faces still hidden behind wrestling masks, as if to undo the very idea of spectacle in which gestures are made "at the height of their meaning", to paraphrase Roland Barthes. Many references collide in this work, but the tribute to Manzoni is probably the most remarkable. A cardboard box is displayed nearby, which collects the unraveled wool, as well as the masks, into one heap. The accessories have become relics, objects of memory in an accelerated Archaeology.
"Fatalité" ("Fate") is a set of seven dynamic microphones on tripods, but the object itself is made of pure transparent glass from Murano. This device for vocal amplification is no longer active, but the artist’s conversion still gives it other symbolic virtues. This post-pop object, whose ubiquity in everyday life is obvious, becomes the most direct and incisive spokesman. From now on, there is nothing to hide.
The third piece, "Grève mondiale", also has a French title but this time it is meant to be taken literally. Written by hand in capital letters, endeavoring to keep the arm lifted, the highlight moves from the word "general" to the password "global", because the protest nowadays can no longer be other than global. It is as though the last revolution can, and should, question the whole universe. The white neon letters are there to teach us and to beat the recall.
"Color Jasmin" is another white neon piece, this time written in both English and French. The work plays its part in a tautological line, but refers obviously to recent political events that have propelled the jasmine, next to the word revolution in a news insurgency.
Ami Barak
Adel Abdessemed
Born in 1971, Constantine, Algeria.
Lives and works in Paris