ART-PREVIEW: Abdelkader Benchamma-Engramme
Abdelkader Benchamma’s drawings take their inspiration from visual scenarios that stem from reflections on space and its physical reality, its limits and its zones of contact with mental space. They operate with diversions, modulating objects to testify of possible malfunctions in our relationship with the other and with things. Shifting of reality, intrusion of the invisible, indeterminate matters undergoing transformation, minuscule catastrophes are at the heart of Abdelkader Benchamma’s work.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Templon Archive
Back from his residency at Villa Medicis, Abdelkader Benchamma presents his solo exhibition “Engramme”. Through the recurring medium of black and white murals, chosen for their simplicity and graphic power, the artist has developed a language which causes viewers to doubt their perception of reality, immersing them in unstable and dynamic universes. From enveloping moving matter at the Drawing Center in New York (2015016), a cave animated by a furious circular vortex at the Sharjah Biennial (2017), these installations, that one could call metaphysical, question our relationship to what is imperceptible, infinite and invisible. For this exhibition, Abdelkader Benchamma examined neurophysiological research on the engram, a biological trace of memories in the brain. The artist created an installation for the gallery combining immersive murals and drawings, multiplying the number of layers which serve to challenge our interpretation of images and their survival. From the celestial to terrestrial, mental recollections to the materiality of marble, Abdelkader Benchamma conjures apparitions, symbols, forbidden representations and unconscious visions in an exploration of two questions: how is humanity programmed to understand images? What is belief in today’s world? The exhibition marks a new chapter in the artist’s career, moving towards further physical density. The “Engramme” mural spreads throughout the gallery space and interacts with the drawings displayed on its surface. It galvanises the entire space, both with its intangible flows and marks and by anchoring the drawings’ substance in place, bedding in the lines and subjects. The piece creates a sort of moving archaeology which roots the celestial manifestations and gives us an accelerated view of drawn-out geological periods, past events that still have an impact to this day. The drawings on paper are superimposed with the mural, complementing or hiding it, and fleetingly bring form to the informal while multiplying the interpretations and temporalities of the practice of drawing, turn in turn dynamic, playing with empty space, and fossilised.
Info: Galerie Templon, 30 rue Beaubourg, Paris, Duration: 16/3-18/5/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, www.templon.com
