ADEL ABDESSEMED::::

God Is Design is a startling twelve-minute animated video in which 3,050 drawings appear, intermingle, and disappear. Silvia Ocougne has created a composition specifically for the piece in which multiple layers of sound complement the dynamic profusion of the drawings. The image-making process provides viewers with a fertile succession of references to cells from the human body, Jewish and Islamic religious symbols, motifs from Western geometric painting and oriental arabesques. Seemingly simple and lighthearted, the work rethinks the representation of the invisible as a collision between codes and styles.

Adel Abdessemed questions the system of the spectacle of art and probes into the biopolitical power of social norms and taboos. His language—from drawing to video, photography to performance and installation—is always radically straightforward and to the point. The sensitive and powerful contents come from the very audacious mobilization and surprising combinations of forms, motives, and situations. Believing in both social and individual revolution, Adel Abdessemed moved from Algeria to France in the mid-90s at a time of great social upheaval. Confronted in France with racism and prejudice, he intelligently uses the system, ironically and critically, to make his claims visible and audible, and to stimulate public debate.