Exhibition

Adel Abdessemed "My child"

Wednesday, 05 April 2023 Sunday, 14 May 2023

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Exhibition poster
Adel Abdessemed, Mon Enfant, 2014 Recycled ivory, 133 x 70 x 40 cm
© Adel Abdessemed, Paris, ADAGP 2023. Photography: Elad Sarig



On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Shoah Memorial invites the contemporary artist Adel Abdessemed to present, in the crypt, a set of works entitled "My child" : a sculpture, and a series of drawings inspired by the iconic photograph No. 14 that SS Jürgen Stroop addressed to Krüger and Himmler, documenting the repression of the insurrection in April-May 1943.

Beyond the historicity of photography, the artist makes emerge, through the materiality of sculpture, its almost living density, its delicacy, the poignant and universal figure of childhood brutally condemned, surrender and terror. Reactivating this image, notably through his drawings that "deconstruct" it, Adel Abdessemed re-questions its controversial meaning, but also and above all pays tribute to this child, offering him, he says, "the immortality of a work of art."

Photo credit: ADEL ABDESSEMED
Mon Enfant, 2014, recycled ivory, 133 x 70 x 40 cm
© Adel Abdessemed, Paris ADAGP 2023. Photography: Elad Sarig

Adel Abdessemed

French artist of Berber origin, Adel Abdessemed graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Batna (1990) and Alger (1994) as well as from the École nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (1998).

Since his first solo exhibition in 2001, others have been dedicated to him: MoMA P.S.1. , New York; San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Parasol Unit, London; Mathaf: Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Malaga; Musée des Beaux-ArtsArts, Montréal and Musée d'Art contemporain, Lyon; RockBund Art Museum, Shanghai.

>Adel Abdessemed, Paris ADAGP 2023 Photograph: Gilles Bensimon

The artist was the subject of a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2012. It is also represented in many international collections: Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain, Geneva; Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Collection Pinault Palazzo Grassi–Punta Della Dogana, Venice; Moderna Museet, Stockholm and the Black Gold Museum, Riyadh.

Curatorial coordination: Marie Deparis-Yafil
With the collaboration of the Studio Abdessemed and the Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv, Brussels, Paris

The studio Adel Abdessemed certifies that the ivory used to make the sculpture "My child" was acquired legally, before 1990. All the parts comprising it have received a CITES certificate, regulating trade in all or part of protected species, and have been subject to strict control aimed at ensuring not only their legal acquisition, but also the absence of prejudice to the conservation status of the species. In accordance with the applicable international and community standards, no animal has been slaughtered, by poaching or any other process, with a view to carrying out this work.

I am discovering the cycle of encounters around the exhibition 

Free admission

In the crypt of the Shoah Memorial in Paris

Read the press release