Studio Visit: Adel Abdessemed |
Organized by Galleria Continua

A private studio visit with Adel Abdessemed, organised by Galleria Continua, offers a rare look at the working world of one of the most committed voices in contemporary art. Born in Constantine, Algeria, in 1971, Abdessemed left the country after the 1992 civil war began, and the memory of that violence continues to shape his work. He trained at the schools of fine arts in Batna, Algiers and Lyon, and took part in the International Studio Program at P.S.1 in New York.

Now based in Paris, he moves across drawing, sculpture, performance, video and installation, addressing war, violence and religion through unflinching imagery, and has collaborated with writers such as Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva and with architect Jean Nouvel. His work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Venice Biennale, and in 2022 he presented a five-floor solo exhibition at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.

More recent projects include Mon Enfant at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris (2023) and the staging and design of Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise in Geneva (2024), alongside Galleria Continua exhibitions that use fire and confront the flood of war imagery in the media. A chance to discover his practice up close in the artist's own space.