Overview
By Alex Wolfe
Abdelkader Benchamma (born 1975, Mazamet) lives and works between Paris and Montpellier, and studied Fine Art at Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Benchamma imposes constraints upon his process to create delicately executed and dynamic drawings of states of matter. His 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 for 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 Benchamma’s work.
Inspired by different thought processes that go from science to esotericism and from literature to history of art, the artist creates artworks with uncertain boundaries, the movement of which destabilises the visitor by playing with the codes of figuration and abstraction. These organic ensembles can make us think of landscapes, not in the traditional sense, but more because the flow they outline brings to mind the movement of natural elements like air, clouds, earth, space.
Moving matter that enveloped us at the Drawing Centre in New York (2015-2016), a cave animated by a furious circular vortex at the Sharjah Biennial (2017), these metaphysical installations question our relationship to what is imperceptible, infinite and invisible. He has had several solo exhibitions in prominent institutions such as Le Centquatre, Paris (2018) and Collection Lambert, Museed’Art Contemporain, Avignon (2021-2022) accompanied by a new 176 pages publication.
Works
Exhibitions
(UN)CONSCIOUS : A SERIES OF SMALL SERENDIPITIES
GROUP SHOW20 January 2018 - 3 March 2019Abdelkader Benchamma Vikram Divecha Mohammed Kazem Ahmad Amin Nazar Hassan Sharif Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is pleased to present (Un)conscious: A series of small serendipities , a group exhibition...Read moreTHE UNBEARABLE LIKENESS
ABDELKADER BENCHAMMA14 March - 5 May 2016Curated by Yasmina Reggad For his second solo show at the gallery, French-Algerian artist Abdelkader Benchamma presents works on paper and sculptural installations, which use the gallery space as a...Read moreCHROMOPHOBIA
ABDELKADER BENCHAMMa19 June 2013 - 28 July 2019In the works of Jessica Mein and Abdelkader Benchamma, colour and form endeavor to organize reality, but can only accomplish their work by capitalizing on the attractive force that images...Read moreCORRUPTED THEORIES
ABDELKADER BENCHAMMA22 May - 15 July 2012Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is proud to present the first solo show of artist Abdelkader Benchamma in the Middle East. In this exhibition, a series of sculptures and works...Read more
External
Cosmography
Group Show, Templon Gallery, New York27 June - 1 August 2024A poetic exploration of the cosmos is presented by the group exhibition Cosmography at TEMPLON New York. Gallery artists Abdelkader Benchamma , Will Cotton, Jitish...Read more
Solastalgia: Archaeologies of Loss
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada13 October 2023 - 24 March 2024Benchamma's first significant solo exhibition in Canada, Solastalgia: Archaeologies of Loss, is the most extensive in North America to date. It includes both recently created...Read more
HISTOIRES DE PIERRES
Villa Médicis, Rome, ITALY13 October 2023 - 14 January 2024'The Stories of stones exhibition presented at the Villa Medici has benefited from loans from more than 70 institutions and brings together nearly 200 works,...Read more
Historia
LAGO ALGO CULTURAL CENTER, Mexico15 September - 20 December 2023Five artists are brought together by LagoAlgo, whose works interact in a chronological trip that spans from the Prehistoric era to the Big History of...Read more
Geology of floods
François Schneider Fondation13 May - 24 September 2023Abdelkader Benchamma is invited to take over the 1200 square meters of the Wattwiller art center by the François Schneider Fondation.The artist proposes an exhibition...Read more
COSMA
Templon Gallery, Paris, France7 January - 13 March 2023Abdelkader Benchamma is presenting a collection of paintings, drawings, and wall works created during his stay at Palazzo Butera in Palermo in conjunction with the...Read more
Rayon fossile
Collection Lambert, Avignon, France30 October 2021 - 20 February 2022“Only that which was at first able to conceal itself appears” Georges Didi-Huberman, Phasmes. Essais sur l’apparition, 1998 The Collection Lambert has invited Abdelkader Benchamma...Read more
ABDELKADER BENCHAMMA FATA BROMOSA
Musée Régional d'Art Contemporain (MRAC) Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée, France23 November 2019 - 27 September 2020For his first solo exhibition in a French museum, Abdelkader Benchamma invests three rooms at Mrac Occitanie in an immersive installation that operates a network...Read more
Echo de la Naissance des Monde
College des Bernardins, Paris, France4 October - 10 November 2018At the time of the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the reopening of the Collège des Bernardins, Abdelkader Benchamma proposes to transform the whole...Read more
Tamawuj | Sharjah Biennial 13
Al Hamriyah Studios, Sharjah 10 March - 22 October 2017Sharjah Biennial 13, Tamawuj unfolds in five parts from October 2016 through January 2018. Featuring over fifty international artists, the biennial encompasses exhibitions and a...Read more
Stairwell Installation Series
The Drawing Center, New York10 April 2015 - 1 August 2016Read more
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