Adel Abdessemed Je suis innocent

Adel Abdessemed revisits subjects such as violence, injustice and conflict, often referencing philosophical or religious texts. Working in a tradition of expressive realism, he has been compared to artists of the 1800s such as Francisco Goya and Theodore Géricualt, both of whom depicted brutal social revolutions in their own time in a realistic and strongly emotive style. The Arab Spring was a series of popular uprisings that led to the overturning of several regimes and democratic reforms in some places. This revolt, which is still ongoing, began in Tunisia in 2010, when the fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest against the systematic harassment by local police of an impoverished underclass without legal rights. Here, Abdessemed stands amid flames in the street outside his studio, defiantly meeting the viewer’s eye.