Massinissa Selmani

Massinissa Selmani creates drawn forms in a documentary style that mingles fictional constructions and animations with press clippings of contemporary issues and events. Through confrontation, juxtaposition, and superimposition of actual elements whose contexts have systematically been concealed, the artist creates enigmatic, ambiguous scenes unlikely to happen in reality. The works bear witness to the absurdity of human behaviors, balancing these depictions within the realms of comedy and tragedy. Architecture serves as an instrument of power throughout. Playing with positive and negative space, and effects of transparency, Selmani invites us to fill in the gaps and to question the way we remember and write history, beyond linear structure. In this way, he explores not only the production process, but also the circulation and proliferation of media images, and how they influence our perception of both historical and current events.

Massinissa Selmani (b. 1980, Algiers) studied computer science in Algeria and graduated from the École supérieure des beaux-arts in Tours, France. In 2015, Massinissa Selmani received a special mention at the 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Onwezor. He was also the winner of the Art Collector Prize (France) and the SAM Art Projects Prize for Contemporary Art (France) in 2016. He is currently living and working in Tours, France and Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria. In 2023, Selmani was shortlisted for the Marcel Duchamp Prize.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include the 56th Venice Biennale; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Taipei Biennial 2023; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Sharjah Biennial 13; Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK; IVAM Valencia, Spain; Zachęta National Gallery, Warsaw; the 13th Biennale de Lyon, France; Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré (CCC OD) of Tours, France; Museum of African Art, Belgrade, Serbia; The Mosaic Rooms, London; 11th Dakar Biennial, Senegal; UGM Maribor, Slovenia; Banjoun station, Cameroon, among others. Collections include the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; MAC Lyon, France; Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Frac Centre Val de Loire, France; Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), France; Fonds d’Art contemporain – Paris collections, France and the British Museum, London, UK.