Adam Adach at La Galerie, Noisy-le-Sec

A review of Adam Adach's exhibition at La Galerie in Noisy-le-Sec, France, from November 24, 2007 to February 2, 2008, featuring works from 2002 to 2006. The critic Anne Malherbe initially struggles with Adach's painting, finding his communist imagery, blurriness, yellowed colors, and stiff figure drawing off-putting. However, she begins to reassess her view with "Sans titre (Treblinka)" (2004), a frontal view of a forest with a blank sign, evoking speed and aggression. The forest was planted by Nazis to conceal a death camp, and the painting's deceptive effects gain power from this historical reference. Yet Malherbe ultimately concludes that Adach's consistent use of sweeping brushstrokes, faded colors, and photographic framing creates an uncomfortable sense of poorly assumed painting, and his staged presentations (e.g., at the Prix Marcel-Duchamp) seem like clumsy attempts to legitimize his medium.