Fall/Winter 2012/2013 - Steidl
Fall/Winter 2012/2013 - Steidl
Fall/Winter 2012/2013 - Steidl
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76<br />
Adel Abdsessemed<br />
I am Innocent<br />
First coming to widespread attention in 2000, the work of Adel Abdessemed has been generally understood as an<br />
intuitive and searing response to the convulsions shaking the contemporary world in its religious, political, economic and<br />
moral aspects. The artist has been said to re-appropriate the primal powers of violence and destruction by creating<br />
braided aeroplanes, a rolled-up fuselage, burnt-out cars moulded in terra cotta, rows of barbed wire… Installations,<br />
performances, drawings, sculptures, videos, photos – Abdessemed employs multiple media to register the signs of<br />
violence scattered across the world, to capture the hubbub of history and render it in images. True as these views may<br />
be, this book and the accompanying major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou offer a thorough reappraisal of them. I am<br />
Innocent shows that history in its chaotic, convulsive and conflicting forms is not the object of Abdessemed’s art but<br />
rather its material, which is thoroughly reworked, stylised and sublimated to the images of the world. Abdessemed’s work<br />
belongs to a history of art that exceeds the narrow limits of the contemporary. Today’s world may supply Abdessemed<br />
with his raw materials, but he subjects them to dream-like displacements and transformations.<br />
Born in Algeria in 1971, Adel Abdessemed began his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Algiers. After the<br />
assassination of its director by Islamists, Abdessemed moved to France and continued to study in Lyon. Today he lives<br />
and works in Paris. In 2000 Abdessemed completed a residence at P.S.1 in New York, and his work is represented in<br />
prominent international collections including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Musée<br />
d’art moderne et contemporain in Geneva, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the François Pinault Foundation<br />
in Venice.<br />
Exhibition: Centre Pompidou, Paris, 3 October <strong>2012</strong> to 7 January <strong>2013</strong><br />
Co-published with Centre Pompidou, Paris<br />
Adel Abdsessemed<br />
I am Innocent<br />
Texts by Pamela M. Lee, Emmanuel Alloa, Patricia Falguieres,<br />
Tom McDonough, Hou Hanru and Philippe-Alain Michaud<br />
Book design by <strong>Steidl</strong> Design<br />
260 pages<br />
10.2 x 13.8 in. / 26 x 35 cm<br />
100 photographs<br />
Four colour process<br />
Clothbound hardcover with dust jacket<br />
€ 30.00 / £ 22.00 / US$ 38.00<br />
ISBN 978-3-86930-541-7<br />
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