Mousse Magazine & Publishing

Adel Abdessemed’s art undertakes a full and stubborn engagement with freeing the image from formal demonstrations, so as to go straight to the real—that is to say, to substantial trauma and fantasy–very far from any pretention of representing “reality” or sublimating the “imaginary.” AIR is an artist’s book gathering reproductions of charcoal drawings of bodies suspended in the empty surface of the paper, floating into a non-place, out of time, as if escaping, flying, dropping, disappearing, or dying. The works revisit the usual definition of drawing as a composition of lines; they are traces, shadows, scratches, interstices, gaps, and opacities that offer a unique experience of the density and evanescence of the (in)visible. A poem by Ocean & Wavz echoes Abdessemed’s drawing practice. This publication is produced and supported by the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, on the occasion of the 2022 exhibition Adel Abdessemed: An Imperial Message.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition The Everted Capital (Katabasis), by Fabien Giraud & Raphaël Siboni, held in 2022 at Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain this book gathers all episodes and seasons composing The Unmanned. Developed starting from 2013, The Unmanned is a large-scale project made up of three seasons: The Unmanned, The Everted Capital and The Form of Not. This series presents a history of human subjectivity in its imbrication with technology. Together with synopsis for each film part of The Unmanned, the book gathers a conversation and essays by Fabien Giraud, Anna Longo, Mihnea Mircan, Patricia Reed, Raphaël Siboni, Anne Stenne, and Olivier Surel.