Adel Abdessemed

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although it fails to convey the richly textured surface of the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. All surface irregularities are in keeping with the artist's choice of found materials.
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Courtesy of the artist.
Created especially for Parasol unit's 10th Anniversary Auction.

"Among the various art spaces in London, Parasol unit is for me a very special place. Inspired to take up what is challenging […] The projects they undertake are never neutral and never exclusively related to the world of art for art’s sake. […] Rather they are in line for taking up international challenges and are always ready to take risks. [...] Parasol unit reflects the artist’s position in interpreting the world and its tragedy […]"

Composed of discarded tin cans, collected in the streets of African and North-African countries and assembled in the shape of a world map, Adel Abdessemed’s use of found materials in Mappemonde owes much to the pioneers of Arte Povera but also to popular craft forms from developing countries, where detritus is reassembled to create toys and other gadgets.

Abdessemed, whose 2010 solo exhibition at Parasol unit received critical acclaim, acknowledges the great influence of Boetti’s iconic mappe on his own work; however one major and essential difference sets them apart; Boetti’s mappe, produced by Afghan craftsmen, delineated frontiers and distinguished each country with the colours of their national flag. By contrast, Abdessemed’s Mappemonde represents a world without borders: all of the continents are harmonised, weaved from tins of the same brand. This is because these two bodies of work are divided by a crucial paradigm shift: in 1989, images of the fall of the Berlin wall - the symbol of the Soviet bloc’s collapse - were displayed in the media as a global statement that the communist era’s resistance to capitalism is defeated.

The homogenisation of differences in Abdessemed’s Mappemonde should be viewed as critical towards the homogenisation and domination of global culture, rather than a blind acceptance and celebration of globalisation – indeed, a democratic society is not one in which all antagonisms have disappeared, but to the contrary “one in which new political frontiers are constantly being drawn and brought into debate” (Claire Bishop, “Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics”, October 110, Autumn 2004, pp. 65-66.).

A mosaic made up of mass-produced assembled waste, distributed by large corporations to be consumed and discarded in other parts of the world, Mappemonde pinpoints Abdessemed’s relevance today: what looks like a beautiful object, a playful exercise of appropriation and upcycling, acutely exposes the waste habits of the industrialised world and the disastrous repercussions this has on underprivileged countries.

Photo: Jack Hems