Adel Abdessemed Paris ADAGP 2021, © Frank Perrin
Adel Abdessemed's installations rarely leave one indifferent. The one that this controversial star of contemporary art has just posed in Paris, in the Marais, is no exception to the rule.
His giant carrier pigeons, which are in reality destructive pigeons, have just landed in the courtyard of the Passage de Retz gallery, rue Charlot (3rd) at the invitation of Jacqueline Frydman. And they are not trivial.
The disconcerting aluminum work of the Franco-Algerian visual artist, an authentic manifesto on the banality of everyday life, rightly tells us that violence is never far away.
These two birds are not harmless. “Die Taubenpost” (carrier pigeons, in German) are harnessed with an explosive charge and a cell phone to trigger them.
According to Adel Abdessemed, the bird is not only the indolent occupant of our cities but a creature potentially carrying terrorist violence, in the same way as a drone.
Exhibited around the world, the artist's work – drawings, videos, installations – disturbs and questions the public almost systematically, like his large vehicles baked in the oven or his taxidermied work in which wolves and their preys intermingle.
We also remember his sculpture “Zidane's Revenge”, which reproduced the famous headbutt administered by the French footballer to the Italian Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final.
She made a big splash when she was exhibited in Beaubourg, on the piazza of the Center Pompidou. This time, there is no question of impulse. But it's still, as always with Abdessemed, a real punch.
Until November 7
Die Taubenpost, Adel Abdessemed
Passage de Retz
9 rue Charlot, 75003 Paris
Tel: 01 48 04 37 99
Adel Abdessemed in front of his work, Die Taubenpost, © Katia Barillot
Text: Katia Barillot
22.10.21
