Adel Abdessemed, Politics of drawing, Soldaten, 2023

Drawing, for Adel Abdessemed is a rigorously monolingual medium that fulfills the requirement of uniqueness expressed by Celan
– monochrome drawings invariably done with a stick of systematically sharpened black chalk of consistent quality, in a very brief
space of time, on paper placed either flat or upright. They concentrate on the emergence of a figure to the detriment of any spa-
tialization (although there are certain exceptions, Abdessemed’s work being anything but systematic), and above all they eschew
metaphor, that is to say any connotation that might compromise a direct, immediate grasp of the singularity of their object.
Jacques Derrida points out that metaphorical displacement, guided by the function of similarity (mimesis or homoiosis) and gov-
erned by the laws of resemblance, simultaneously entails a return to the uniqueness of meaning. Abdessemed stresses this point:
his drawings refer to nothing other than themselves ; they transmit no images or ideas but, on the contrary, bring images and ideas
back to a stage prior to the instauration of meaning, there where pure singularity resides. This does not mean that phenomena of
displacement do not occur in the moment of execution, in which the work of metaphor is literally recognized. It could even be
argued that if Abdessemed’s drawings contain no metaphors, that is because drawing as such is the metaphor – that is to say, the
description of a displacement in which the act of drawing ultimately summons up appearances.

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Adel Abdessemed

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Adel Abdessemed

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