Adel
Abdessemed

Adel
Abdessemed

French, born in 1971


Adel Abdessemed's work offers critical readings of the contemporary world based on personal experience. His work, which includes videos, photographs, sculptures and installations, can be interpreted as acting like a seismograph that detects and reveals the tensions stressing today's world and people.

One of the artist’s first notable videos, Joueur de flûte (Flute Player) (1996), was shown at the Tri Postal de Lille in 2007. Featuring a nude, flute-playing Islamic cleric, today it is in the Pinault Collection. The artist often uses short videos in a loop as a cry, although he also makes sculptures and drawings. Abdessemed’s surprising, spectacular, sometimes monumental works function as living images with many levels of meaning. Some works from the Pinault Collection, such as Décor (2011-2012), a series of four monumental depictions of Christ on a razor's edge, and Talk is Cheap (2006), a short video of a microphone drop, have featured in several major shows.

Born in Algeria, Adel Abdessemed studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Algiers before moving to France in the 1990s. In the 2000s, he became a key figure on the contemporary French and international scene. His works in the Pinault Collection have been shown at the Palazzo Grassi and outside its walls.
Expositions