Abdelkader Benchamma
Visual Arts
Spring
- Visual Arts
- New York
These artworks testify to an immemorial yearning, the urge to reach beyond the visible and commune with the unseen.
I am a visual artist, trained at the Beaux-Arts in Montpellier and Paris. I have chosen drawing as my primary medium.
I create large-scale, often immersive and ephemeral drawing installations that function as possible passages between physical and spiritual worlds. These installations continuously interrogate exhibition spaces, transforming them into resonant spaces.My installation work draws on a wide range of images from highly diverse sources. I research, collect, incorporate, and interrogate these materials, some of which are then reworked within my drawings.
A significant portion of this imagery engages with narratives, belief systems, and phenomena that emerge at the limits of our understanding like unknown celestial events, photographs of miraculous apparitions (like Zeitoun and Fátima), and UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena).This body of essays is continuously expanded through ongoing research and serves as a vital resource for my artistic practice.
For my residency at Villa Albertine, I have selected New York as the site where I intend to explore the archives of the United States oldest organization dedicated to psychical research, the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), with the goal of deepening my ongoing investigation into the invisible and its representations.
On the walls of the Centre Pompidou, my installation Au Bord des Mondes blended large abstract sections with various drawings inspired by my archival images. These artworks testify to an immemorial yearning, the urge to reach beyond the visible and commune with the unseen. Today, many disciplines, from physics, anthropology, to neurobiology are exploring what might exist at the edge of our knowledge. This is not about reviving the folklore of spiritualist beliefs, but about exploring how an artistic practice can in turn engage with “other realities” and create “an echo” with the notions of the invisible and cognitive limits. With this perspective in mind, I recently contacted the ASPR based in New York. This research center, which boasts an extensive archive and a specialized library, houses numerous documents related to parapsychological phenomena. The ASPR has agreed to grant me access to these resources to further my research.
Founded in 1885, the ASPR is the oldest organization dedicated to psychic research in the United States. Its founding and associate members include visionary scientists and thinkers such as William James, Freud, and Jung. The ASPR studies so-called paranormal phenomena, telepathy, clairvoyance, celestial phenomena, premonitory dreams, and their connection to consciousness and the universe. Its impressive archive contains rare and historical documents on psychology and spirituality, contributing to the scientific and interdisciplinary debate on the nature of consciousness and reality.
Access to the resources of this research center will allow me to deepen and give a new dimension to my research, as outlined notably in the exhibition “Au bord des Mondes” at the Centre Pompidou as part of the Marcel Duchamp Prize. This installation takes its title from the philosopher Mohamed Amer Meziane, who explores the question of the invisible while deconstructing the legacy of a certain colonial and Orientalist mindset.
The second part of my project concerns the artist, Raymond Petitbon. In 2019 and 2020, I began a collaboration with this artist, who lives and works in New York. From this series of collaborative drawings, common themes began to emerge: the intrusion of the paranormal and parallel worlds, apocalyptic narratives, conspiracy theories, and this human need to believe in something transcendental. We plan to develop all these ideas into new collaborative graphic works as well as new artistic explorations.
Spending two months in New York will give us the time to think through and create these new series of drawings.
In partnership with
ADIAF
The Association for the International Diffusion of French Art brings together 300 collectors of modern art who are fully committed to the creativity quest. It was created in 1994 with the ambition to highlight the flourishing creativity of the French artistic scene and to promote the French art scene throughout the world. ADIAF has created in 2000 the Prix Marcel Duchamp which is awarded annually to one among four shortlisted artists either born or residing in France and working in the field of visual arts. Organized since its founding in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, this seminal art Prize is considered today one of the most relevant vectors of information on contemporary art in France.