NAME
Adel Abdessemed
Pressoir,
fais-le

‘Pressoir, fais-le’, 2002,
video projection, 3 sec. (loop), color, sound,
dimensions vary (aspect ratio 4:3)

Highly enlarged during projection, Pressoir, fais-le (“press it, do it”) is a close-up shot of Adel’s heel and a lemon. The heel suddenly crushes the fruit, making the juice spurt. The violence of the gesture and its outcome generate a pure image of “exiting,” a literal form of ecstasy (ex-stasis, out of place). The juice spurts from the “body” of the lemon like an ejaculation, an orgasm. But there is also a question here of violence, domination, and crushing.

In its blend of violence and orgasm, Pressoir, fais-le is a Dionysian work, the first appearance of a figure that would often reappear, transformed, in Abdessemed’s oeuvre.

This video piece was one of the first works done by the artist during his stay in Berlin in 2002.

Giovanni Careri