The great invisible battle

The Blueproject Foundation presents the exhibition “The Great Invisible Battle” at the Sala Project, by the French artist Abdelkader Benchamma. The show can be visited from September 9 until November 6 2016.

Abdelkader Benchamma intervenes directly on the Sala Project walls creating a large scale installation in which he also places some of his previous drawings on paper. In this exhibition, especially conceived to the Blueproject Foundation, the artist keeps on doing the research he started in a previous project, which departure point was a photograph and a short film published in 1942 in the United States, under the name of “The Los Angeles Battle”.

These documents show the American army opening fire for several hours against what they believed to be, according to some witnesses, a luminous object in the sky. One of the photographs of the incident was quickly retouched before being published, emphasizing the presence of a supposed luminous object among the other lights. This image, which became a classic case in Ufology, works as a testimony of the impossibility of an objective interpretation of an event in which intervenes a heavy emotional burden.

Between the collective hallucination due to the stress caused by a Japanese aerial attack and the celestial apparition that refers to old myths, Benchamma questions through the drawing the veracity of the images, as well as their constant modifications and interpretations throughout the years.

The exhibition will continue until Sunday November the 20th 2016.

Abdelkader Benchamma (Mazamet, Francia, 1975) studied Fine Art at l’École des Beaux-Arts of Montpellier and Paris. Among his recent solo shows are Representation of Dark Matter, a wall drawing commission at The Drawing Center Nueva York (2015), Random, FRAC Auvergne (2015), as well as the participation in group exhibitions in renowned art centres, such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris or the Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. He holds a solid career at international level that has led him to be in important French and Middle East art collections. His works combine abstract and figurative styles, departing from classical references, either from art or literature, as well as material from the scientific knowledge, graphic design, Japanese painting, comic and street art. He lives and works in Paris and Montpellier.