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First coming to widespread attention in 2000, the work of Adel Abdessemed has been generally understood as an
intuitive and searing response to the convulsions shaking the contemporary world in its religious, political, economic and
moral aspects. The artist has been said to re-appropriate the primal powers of violence and destruction by creating
braided aeroplanes, a rolled-up fuselage, burnt-out cars moulded in terra cotta, rows of barbed wire Installations,
performances, drawings, sculptures, videos, photos Abdessemed employs multiple media to register the signs of
violence scattered across the world, to capture the hubbub of history and render it in images. True as these views may
be, this book and the accompanying major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou offer a thorough reappraisal of them. I am
Innocent shows that history in its chaotic, convulsive and conflicting forms is not the object of Abdessemed s art but
rather its material, which is thoroughly reworked, stylised and sublimated to the images of the world. Abdessemed s work
belongs to a history of art that exceeds the narrow limits of the contemporary. Today s world may supply Abdessemed
with his raw materials, but he subjects them to dream-like displacements and transformations.
Born in Algeria in 1971, Adel Abdessemed began his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Algiers. After the
assassination of its director by Islamists, Abdessemed moved to France and continued to study in Lyon. Today he lives
and works in Paris. In 2000 Abdessemed completed a residence at P.S.1 in New York, and his work is represented in
prominent international collections including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Musée
d art moderne et contemporain in Geneva, Musée d Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the François Pinault Foundation
in Venice.
