As its title ‘Otchi Tchiornie’ (or 'Dark Eyes') suggests, the exhibition conceived by Adel Abdessemed for the MAC’s Grand Hornu is marked by blackness; that of the night and of dreams, of sleep and of death, of shadows and of the pieces of charcoal with which the artist draws. Inspired by the tragedy of the human condition, the exhibition begins with a reference to the legend of Orpheus, inviting us to regard the show as a contemporary rendering of a mythical theme: the journey to hell. To this blackness - a disquieting fur that covers Abdessemed’s diabolical cat as it does his carbonised figures - red is added; that of the carpet, rolled out in order to honour the great and - like the striking image of Aeschylus in his 'Agamemnon' - to transform this “carmine path” into a tragic ruse, leading criminals of war to the gates of Hades. Like Cocteau, Dante or Virgil before him, the artist too will descend there, to describe to us the dead and the dormant, the choirs and the armies who, like eternal ghosts, haunt this underworld.