Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art is hosting an exhibition by Adel Abdessemed titled L’âge d’or. Curated by Pier Luigi Tazzi, the exhibition will showcase recent works, including drawings, paintings, sculptures and videos, many created by the artist especially for this show in Doha.
Working across a wide range of media, Abdessemed transforms well-known materials and imagery into charged artistic declarations. Abdessemed has described himself as “an artist of acts,” and his works are known for their forceful impact and symbolic resonance. Taking materials into great consideration, he is often provocative in their use; camel bones, gold, salt, brass, gum, and terracotta take on new and multiple meanings.
Mathaf’s Director, Abdellah Karroum, said, “Adel Abdessemed’s exhibition is the first major curatorial project produced by Mathaf I will have the pleasure to open since my recent appointment as director. L’âge d’or is undoubtedly a very challenging show in many ways, one that I hope will resonate with visitors from Qatar and around the world. Adel is an artist with whom I have worked extensively in the past. His work contributes substantially to the debate of ideas and leads the way in the movement towards new concepts in the art scene and the world at large.”
New works presented at Mathaf will include the eponymous L’âge d’or, a bas-relief work of gold-plated brass depicting the artist’s four young daughters, and Julie, a life-size sculpture of the artist’s wife made from both salt stone from Siwa and a rock local to the region of Qatar. A large-scale terracotta wall relief, entitled Shams and created in situ, depicts and explores the unseen workers of this world. Other new sculptures include Curiosity, a bas-relief in red terracotta depicting Nasa’s robot on the planet Mars; La Chine est proche, a bicycle fashioned from camel bone; and East of Eden, groupings of knives thrust into the ground.
In two new video works, Abdessemed employs the percussive and rhythmic device of a bare human foot repeatedly crushing objects, of high symbolic significance: a white rose (Ayaï) and a skull (Histoire de la folie). In another new video, Printemps, violence is explored as a line of chickens against a wall appear on fire.
A limited edition bilingual Arabic-English three-volume exhibition catalogue designed by M/M Paris, featuring three newly commissioned essays by Pier Luigi Tazzi, Angela Mengoni and Abdellah Taïa, in addition to an interview of Adel Abdessemed with Hans Ulrich Obrist, and numerous drawings and images, will be released by Mathaf and Silvana Editoriale publishing.
The exhibition at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will be held from October 6, 2013 to January 5, 2014 in the Atrium and ground floor of the museum.
The Peninsula
