Surfaces - Encounter

During the Surfaces night, organised together with the exhibition, it is Adel Abdessemed's relationship to literature that will be explored. A friend of poets, his path has always taken him from reception to creation. The night will open with a reading by Olivier Py of a text written for the occasion, before authors Maël Renouard and Jean-Philippe Toussaint read their own texts, about the presence of Adel Abdessemed in the church of the Célestins. Actress Maria de Medeiros will talk about what feeds her creativity, in particular her idea of the ideal library, preceded by a text written for the event by Hélène Cixous. The night will end with a conversation between the writers and Adel Abdessemed. The goal is to make the extraordinary interactions between word and image appear, to show the vitality of uninterrupted dialogues within the secret of art.

Adel Abdessemed
Adel Abdessemed (born 1971) is an artist. His work is about the big issues of the modern world, be they political, personal, or aesthetic, transposing them into the field of art: he uses drawing and video, sculpture and installations. The materials he uses transmute to create a unique formal experience, always in relation to the world—what he calls an “act.” His work has been exhibited in many prestigious institutions, in France and abroad: he has taken part in three Venice Biennales (2003, 2007, and 2015), as well as in the Lyon (2009), Havana (2009), Sydney (2010), Istanbul (2007), and Tirana (2005) Biennales, and in the Yokohama Triennale (2001). He has had shows in the Collection Lambert for the Maeght Fondation in Venice in 2015, the Centre Georges Pompidou in 2012, the MIT List Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2008, and at the MoMA PS1 New York in 2007. He has long collaborated with several poets and intellectuals. 

With Adel Abdessemed, Olivier Py, Maël Renouard, Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Texte by Hélène Cixous, read by Maria de Medeiros
Hosted by Donatien Grau