Adel Abdessemed — Rio, David Zwirner, New York, 2009

Exhibition invitation card
David Zwirner, 519 & 525 & 533 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011
3 April – 9 May 2009

Offset print on folded card stock
Approx. 20.5 × 20.5 cm

Condition: very good vintage condition. Light handling wear and minor surface marks. The traces remain part of the record: evidence of circulation, storage, handling, and transfer.

Issued for Rio, Adel Abdessemed’s 2009 exhibition at David Zwirner in New York. The cover reproduces a detail from Lincoln (2009), a large-scale C-print depicting the artist reclining across a seated figure based on the Lincoln Memorial. The work belongs to a period in which Abdessemed repeatedly reactivated historical, political, and cultural symbols through direct physical intervention, staging encounters between contemporary bodies and collective monuments.

Born in Algeria in 1971 and based between Europe and the United States, Adel Abdessemed emerged during the 2000s as one of the most discussed artists of his generation. His work frequently combines sculpture, photography, film, drawing, and installation, addressing violence, representation, power, memory, and resistance. By the time of Rio, he had already exhibited internationally at major institutions including the Venice Biennale, positioning the exhibition as part of his rapid ascent within the global contemporary art circuit.

As an object, the card records a specific moment in the expansion of David Zwirner’s Chelsea programme during the late 2000s. The image operates simultaneously as artwork, announcement, and distribution device. Folded, mailed, retained, and later separated from its original function, the invitation remains as a compact record of how contemporary art entered circulation before social media became the dominant exhibition platform.

A gallery announcement retained long enough to change status.

Shipping and handling included.