The animal is one of the recurring motifs in the work of Adel Abdessemed: the war animal, the violence of people against animals, but also the violence inherent in the animal (animals kill each other). On the occasion of the “Otchi Tchiornie” exhibition at MaCs, Adel Abdessemed created an installation “Moutarde” (“Mustard”), a monumental collection of metal gears in continuous motion, home to seven cats and a dog that the artist here depicted contained in an eternal sleep.

The installation functions as an allegory and is partly the transposition by Adel Abdessemed of the famous “legend of the seven sleepers”, a cult of torture. Recalling the popular use of mustard as a repellant against cats, the title of the work also refers to the mustard gas used as a chemical weapon during World War I. Here, the artist draws a cat lying asleep on the dog’s back, depicting the friendship between these two animals who are usually each other’s enemies. The charcoal used by Adel Abdessemed recalls the former industrial activity of the Grand-Hornu site and reveals the dark side of the artist who considers himself an artist “from the depths” like Orpheus descending into hell for his beloved one Eurydice.