Adel Abdessemed and Susana Pilar at Galleria Continua San Gimignano

Galleria Continua presents two solo exhibitions at its San Gimignano venues: Adel Abdessemed's 'Jam Proximus Ardet' at Arco dei Becci and Susana Pilar's 'Empatìa' at Piazza della Cisterna, both running until March 31, 2024. Abdessemed's 2021 video 'La Dernière Vidéo' shows a ship engulfed in flames approaching the camera, with the artist standing stoically on deck, referencing Virgil's Aeneid and allegorizing Mediterranean tragedies. The fire motif recurs in his works 'Je suis innocent' (2000), 'Description d’un combat' (2020), and 'Tonight no man will sleep' (2022), reflecting on violence, trauma, and memory tied to his flight from Algeria's civil war in 1992. Susana Pilar's 'Empatìa' features participatory and performative works addressing gender, social, and racial issues. 'Black Stories' (first performed in Belgium, later in Senegal) involves Pilar making origami with her feet for three hours, referencing mutilations during Belgian colonization of Congo. 'Intercontinental Drawing' (photographic result of a 2017 Venice Biennale performance) metaphorically drags a boat, alluding to ancestors transported from China and Africa to Cuba. 'Wall of all together' invites visitors to write a word defining their best virtue toward others. At the January 20, 2024 opening, Pilar performed a new piece using a slingshot made from a loincloth to throw haiku-inscribed tickets as a protest against commodification of the body.