After Julien Beneyton's exhibition last summer at the Frac Picardie and at the Galerie ToTem in Amiens Métropole, discover in these two places, the artist Massinissa Selmani under the curatorship of Philippe Piguet from June 15.
Exhibition: from 15.06.24 to 05.10.24
Location: Frac Picardie, Amiens
Exhibition: from 15.06.24 to 28.09.24
Location: ToTem Gallery in Amiens Métropole
Guest artists: Bertille Bak and Marie Dubois
Opening tour: Friday June 14, 2024 at 5:30 p.m. at the ToTem Gallery, at 7 p.m. at the Frac Picardie and at 8 p.m. cocktail followed by a concert by the trio of musicians from the Orchester de Picardie.
At the same time, discover the seasonal presentation of the Orchester de Picardie in the auditorium at 45 rue Pointin at 7 p.m.
“The works of Massinissa Selmani immediately question the gaze because they do not offer themselves to be seen in an explicitly narrative way. Conceived in the mode of assembly (…), they constitute a recomposed whole which determines them in the order of strange, if not incongruous, situations in terms of the meaning they deliver.
Between reality and illusion, Massinissa Selmani cultivates the art of the interstice and its images, “the tacit and the inexpressible”. This is also the title of one of his “drawn forms”, composed of drawings and volumes. Drawings on paper or animation, sculptures, installations, the Frac Picardie exhibition will be an opportunity for the artist to slip into all possible interstices." Philippe Piguet, exhibition curator
Massinissa Selmani was born in 1980 in Algiers. He lives in France and Algeria.
Massinissa Selmani's practice revolves around drawn forms where the seriousness of the subjects is carried by humor, the absurd and economy of means. They often present drawings depicting strange or absurd situations made from improbable assemblages, images taken from the written press, but also short animations and volume compositions evolving over the context of the exhibitions. These forms highlight the documentary dimension of drawing, the narrative processes that result from it, creating works on the border of the real and the unreal, the political and the poetic, the comic and the tragic, characteristics of the work of the artist.
In 2023, Massinissa Selmani was nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize. In 2015, he received a special mention at the 56th Venice Biennale.
He was also the winner of the Art[]Collector Prize (FR) and the SAM Art Projects Prize (FR) in 2016.
Massinissa Selmani's work has notably been exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale (IT), at the Pompidou Center (FR), at the Palais de Tokyo (FR), at the 11th Dakar Biennale (SEN), at the Sharjah Biennale (UAE). ), at IVAM, Valencia (ESP), at UGM, Maribor (SVN), at Modern Art Oxford (UK), at the Taipei Biennale 2023 (TWN).
His work has joined several collections such as the Center Pompidou, the British Museum, the MAC in Lyon and the CNAP, Samdani Foundation, the Frac Center Val de Loire and the Fonds d'Art Contemporain – Paris collections.
Philippe Piguet
Historian and art critic, independent exhibition curator, Philippe Piguet, born in 1946, has been responsible for the contemporary art programming at the Chapelle de la Visitation in Thonon-les-Bains (74) since 2008. From 1985 to 2018, he collaborated regularly with the magazine L'œil.
From 2010 to 2018, he was the artistic director of DRAWING NOW PARIS, the contemporary drawing fair. General Commissioner of the Normandy Impressionist 2020 festival and is again in 2024. In addition, he was a member of various technical committees of Frac, including that of Picardie from 1990 to 1992.
If his field of study covers a period ranging from the mid-19th century to the present day, its main focuses are on the Impressionist period – and more particularly on Claude Monet – and on contemporary art as it has developed since the 1960s.
