Adel Abdessemed's New York debut at David Zwirner Gallery presents monumental airplane sculpture and video works

Adel Abdessemed's inaugural New York solo exhibition occupied all three spaces of David Zwirner Gallery from April 3 to May 9, 2009, at 519, 525 and 533 West 19th Street. The show featured a massive sixty-five-foot sculpture titled Telle mèr tel fils (2008), composed of three braided airplanes with original cockpits and tailfins alongside reconstructed felt fuselages. This monumental piece subverted readymade traditions by transforming aircraft into an alien form that overwhelmed the gallery. Another work, The Sea (2009), presented a looped video of the artist balancing on wood in open water while writing "politically correct," drawing visual parallels to Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19). Critical response noted that the exhibition's fragmented curation and overt art historical references—including problematic associations with Joseph Beuys—detracted from the visceral impact of individual works. While Abdessemed's "acts" generated immediate viewer reactions through their scale and material tension, the show's expansive scope across multiple gallery spaces diluted its overall coherence. The artist's playful engagement with destruction and reconstruction themes created thrilling moments, yet extraneous elements like the sculpture's title translation ("like mother like son") added confusion rather than meaning.