Adel Abdessemed at Parasol Unit

Adel Abdessemed at Parasol Unit

23 September, 2010
by: Claireflan

Claire Flannery pays a visit to Adem Abdessemed's new solo show at Parasol Unit, but finds it all a little obvious.

It’s a bit of an obvious comment to say that someone who makes a 21-metre self-portrait in the form of a horizontal skeleton is concerned with scale and maximum visibility. But obvious is the word that comes to mind again and again when walking around Adel Abdessemed’s solo show at Parasol Unit.

The work is eye-catching. Performance is key. He likes to shock. It’s clear that he himself, as artist, as persona, as skeleton, is central to his work. But frankly, it all looks a bit gratuitously outsized, easy and, as I said, obvious, despite its intensions/pretensions to be the opposite. That’s why I feel a little left out when I’m told that “his works embody the fragility of life and are deeply imbued with beauty and poetry”.

But Parasol Unit is respected, so as per usual I must go beyond my initial reaction, stick with it, and dig deeper. I cannot say that I'm completely underwhelmed by his overwhelming works: the 21-metre skeleton (just seven metres shy of Gino de Dominicis' skeleton 'Calamita Cosmica', 1988); a performance whereby Abdessemed is suspended from an airborne helicopter while drawing a very big circle (somewhat reminiscent of Matthew Barney’s ‘Drawing Restraint’ series); 800 masks made from African metallic packaging...

I'm intrigued by his work ‘Also Sprach Allah’, 2008. The (prayer) mat with the title words scrawled on it is accompanied by a video showing the performance in which it was made; Abdessemed propelled repeatedly from another mat, by an ample gathering of young men, up towards the ceiling where the mat is pinned, and onto which he makes a mark upon the climax of each thrust. The effort is palpable. I feel suitably uncomfortable and it makes me think about the physical rituals of prayer.

But overall, even though I'm reluctant to contest the judgement of Parasol Unit, it seems to me that this is an artist who is (to his detriment and perhaps paradoxically) bigger than his art. In an interview with Art World in 2009, he tells us many times what he is: “I am a messenger of the minimum”, “a romantic animal”, “I try to push myself to the limits of craziness”, “I feel a little like James Joyce. I am like an arrow that crosses but doesn’t fall on a nation”…yet says little about his art beyond its themes of danger and violence. “Death is violent,” he tells us. “Making images is violent. Birth is violent”. All true of course, but again all a bit obvious.

Adel Abdessemed - Silent Warriors is at Parasol Unit until 14th November 2010.

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Claireflan