Born in 1971 in Constantine, Algeria
lives and works in Paris
Adel Abdessemed (born in 1971) is a leading figure on the international
art scene. Through video, sculpture and installation, Adel Abdessemed
probes the wounds of the contemporary world. Over the last twenty years
his work has had numerous solo exhibitions, at PS1/MoMA, MIT List Art
Center, Le Magasin – Centre National d’Art Contemporain de Grenoble,
Parasol Unit in London, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin,
Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou (for the
retrospective Adel Abdessemed : Je suis Innocent), CAC in Málaga, and
the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal with Conflit. Adel Abdessemed’s
work has been shown at three Venice Biennales (2003, 2009 and 2015), as
well as at the Istanbul (2017), Havana (2009), Gwangju (2008), Lyon
(2007) and Saõ Paulo (2006) biennal. In 2016 he was guest artist at the Festival d’Avignon where he presented his project, Surfaces. At
the same time, the organisation Bold Tendencies commissioned the work
Bristow as part of is arts programme in Peckham, London. In 2017 he participated in the Milan Triennale The Restless Earth and the Suzu Oku-Noto Triennale in Japan. In
2018, major monographic exhibitions will take place, among which Le
Chagrin des Belges, Otchi Tchiornie at
Grand-Hornu, and L’Antidote in Musée d’Art Contemporain, in Lyon. This
same year, he will undertake a public commission in Naoshima, Japan, as
part of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale.
He works
with creators in all fields—poetry (he has published two volumes with
Adonis and several with Hélène Cixous), dance (Retour à Berratham by
Angelin Preljocaj in 2015) and architecture (Jalousies, Complicités avec
Jean Nouvel, Collection Lambert at the Musée de Vence in 2015).
A
three-volume monograph titled Works was published recently by Walther
König, consisting of a catalogue of twenty years of creative work.
