Voyage dans le dessin

In Amorce dans l'air léger, Massinissa Selmani assembles elements to produce strange, even absurd situations, imbued with a certain gravity; they suggest signs of a latent tragedy or the beginnings of an elusive violence to come. The resulting storytelling, deliberately constructed from postures or fragments of architecture that seem familiar, escapes the possibility of situating or dating them. The elements thus isolated from their context tend to make the situations eternal.

Prélude de l'élan visible series has been inspired by the artist, after he was marked by the recent accounts of  violence and arrests. Massinissa Selmani wanted to translate this use of excessive physical and institutional force. Nevertheless, he does not aim here to describe a specific action or event, but rather a situation in which the violence of authority is played out in the face of its being challenged through various forms of protest (resistance, opinions, the unbolting of statues, etc.). He thus offers a subjective reading of so-called "legitimate" physical violence by focusing more on its structural and unfathomable part rather than its contextual one.

The series Après l'ordinaire (After the Ordinary) is rooted in the media imaginary of the political demonstrations and riots that have made the news in recent months. From the carcasses of burnt or overturned ordinary and police's cars that he takes from the press and photocopies, Massinissa Selmani reinterprets the ruins of violence by associating them with incongruous elements (hunting trophies, turtles, wheels, rocks, etc.). The latter seem to create a balance with this violence that they defuse, thus forming territories of conflict tinged with a mystical, even disturbing banality. Moreover, through the intrusion of formal geometric elements and the multiplication of points of view in the five variations of Après l'ordinaire, the artist pursues his reflection on altered images and the documentation of events through drawing.

The series Après l'ordinaire (After the Ordinary) is rooted in the media imaginary of the political demonstrations and riots that have made the news in recent months. From the carcasses of burnt or overturned ordinary and police's cars that he takes from the press and photocopies, Massinissa Selmani reinterprets the ruins of violence by associating them with incongruous elements (hunting trophies, turtles, wheels, rocks, etc.). The latter seem to create a balance with this violence that they defuse, thus forming territories of conflict tinged with a mystical, even disturbing banality. Moreover, through the intrusion of formal geometric elements and the multiplication of points of view in the five variations of Après l'ordinaire, the artist pursues his reflection on altered images and the documentation of events through drawing.

Inspired by Jean Sénac's poems, Massinissa Selmani tries to capture the particular rhythm of the author's writing. He draws fragments with watercolour that echo the language. The sentences are sometimes left as they are, sometimes invented, modified or expanded, while preserving and emphasizing the impertinence and absurdity of the revolutionary poet's words. Far from illustration, Massinissa Selmani focuses mainly on the formal and graphic rhythm to develop a poetry of drawing that is central in his work.

The "Byblos" series was produced for the group exhibition "Voyages immobiles" at La Poste du Louvre in Paris in 2021, curated by Jérôme Sans. The series of Indian ink drawings evokes a dreamlike cartography and a nomadic or imaginary stroll through the fantasy worlds of Byblos in Lebanon, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The series is based on stories and images, rewriting a fantasised environment in the light of the artist's own experience of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

The "Byblos" series was produced for the group exhibition "Voyages immobiles" at La Poste du Louvre in Paris in 2021, curated by Jérôme Sans. The series of Indian ink drawings evokes a dreamlike cartography and a nomadic or imaginary stroll through the fantasy worlds of Byblos in Lebanon, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The series is based on stories and images, rewriting a fantasised environment in the light of the artist's own experience of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

The "Byblos" series was produced for the group exhibition "Voyages immobiles" at La Poste du Louvre in Paris in 2021, curated by Jérôme Sans. The series of Indian ink drawings evokes a dreamlike cartography and a nomadic or imaginary stroll through the fantasy worlds of Byblos in Lebanon, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The series is based on stories and images, rewriting a fantasised environment in the light of the artist's own experience of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

The "Byblos" series was produced for the group exhibition "Voyages immobiles" at La Poste du Louvre in Paris in 2021, curated by Jérôme Sans. The series of Indian ink drawings evokes a dreamlike cartography and a nomadic or imaginary stroll through the fantasy worlds of Byblos in Lebanon, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The series is based on stories and images, rewriting a fantasised environment in the light of the artist's own experience of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Cette oeuvre s'inscrit dans la continuité de la série des Pensées ou des Chants d'oiseaux ; des formes autogénérées, faites de traces et de cheminements rendent l'intervention artistique dépendante de facteurs aléatoires. Réalisée à partir du frottage de planches de parquet à la mine de plomb, elle vient sublimer les nervures du bois et les galeries creusées par les insectes, composant autant de motifs évoquant un dessin ou bien une forme d'écriture mystérieuse.