Unexpected Distances

Massinissa Selmani is a consummate chronicler of everyday absurdities.

Massinissa Selmani is a consummate chronicler of everyday absurdities. His spare, sensitively rendered drawings are often based on disparate imagery shorn from their former illustrative functions and frames of reference in print media and other source material. Layering his sketches on transparency and tracing paper over a larger compositional ground, the artist isolates, enhances and filters aspects of his subject matter, creating idiosyncratic scenes that convey a sense of irreverence and wonder in the face of narrative certitude. Unexpected Distances (2017) is a SB13 commission that combines drawing with video and selected objects, building on prior investigations of perception and narrative. Here, Selmani explores a notion of elasticity, as he contemplates space, time, movement, method and energy. The enduring capacity to return to a state after being stretched or compressed models a form of non-oppositional resistance that is rooted in preservation. This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 13.