Field Trip - Adel Abdessemed

I enjoyed the exhibit, specifically the cats. The juxtaposition of cats drinking milk and the cat eating a rat made me think of my house cats in a different way. It was interesting that many visitors had been disturbed by the house cat and the rat but it is perfectly ordinary to watch a lion or tiger eat a deer on the Discovery Channel and not think anything of it.

Field trip: Adel Abdessemed

In general I was not particularly moved by many of the pieces in this exhibit. The opera singer, speaking as a terrorist, was really just irritating. The cat eating the rat was disgusting in an expected way. The exhibit was loud.

The one piece where I was able to appreciate complexity was where milk was poured on the man's head, not because it looked demeaning, but because the man looked like he was suffocating. He reportedly hated milk. I felt suffocation, or claustrophobia.

At the end I spent a little more time with the cat videos, and I was able to see them as skittish in a desperate way, but I'm not sure if I would have gone back if I had not been told they were feral cats. 

I was particularly struck by the cocoon  of humidity I created once I finally took a seat in the subway car on my way home. 

Adel Abdessemed

Overall, there weren't a lot of pieces that made me think about anything other than what it was at face value. To me, the burnt car was a burnt car, and the cats drinking milk were cats drinking milk... However, all of the pieces as a whole melded well together and that is a testament to the artist's vision and to the curators. Adel's pieces do not stand well individually, but as a group they tell a great story about Algerian history. Having said that, there was just one piece that really stayed in my mind after I left the exhibit:

The camera falling out of the plane didn't really fit with everything else. After seeing this piece the first thing that jumped into my head was: "Boy, that is dangerous; what if the camera hit somebody?" And then I realized how funny that was because that is not going to go through one's head if they themselves jump out of the plane. This piece fit well with the video of the artist's son waving obviously, but I felt it could also have been powerful on its own. It made me think about a difference between life and death; in life you (might) care about other peoples' well being, but in death, especially in suicide, one is going to have a tough time to consider other people. In the end, the piece shows how selfish suicide is.

Field Trip: Adel Abdessemed

As requested, here is my feedback of one piece from Adel's show:
The piece that struck me the most were the large scale dual videos showing the fall from the plane next to the image of his son waving goodbye. If looked at separately, each video tells its own unique story and/or one's own interpretation of the story. Together, the images add another dimension. They feed off eachother and allow the viewer to construct a reason why the individual in the plane would want to commit suicide with a young child eagerly waving. Is the image of the child from long ago and has since died, leaving the jumper distraught? Is the jumper so distanced from reality that the child is insignificant? The combination of images basically makes me try to read into the story rather than take each video at face value.