The Common Guild

Adel Abdessemed gives us an extra dose of dramatic jollity in Glasgow, fresh from his recent show at PS1 New York. Combining as much media as interconnected philosophies, Abdessemed might be throwing a gauntlet down to the flotsam and jetsam of the average art dabbler. There has already been a small taster of his work in the latest group show at The Common Guild, Always Begin By Degrees. In Abdessemed's video Talk is Cheap, a microphone is crushed underfoot, releasing a huge blasting sound which then slowly gives way to silence.

A roaming solo show is a heady prospect. He is a familiar name on the biennial circuit, featured in Venice 2007 and Sao Paolo 2006, his inclusion often adding a playfully antagonistic stance. A gaggle of Moroccan knives splay out from a pivotal point, delivering introspection with serious razzmatazz in Axe On, shown at the 10th Istanbul Biennial. Here, violence and its necessary weapons are tampered with and made impotent through a cunning arrangement. Such taut oppositions might be something of an endangered device, but Abdessemed handles any resulting tension with canny poetics. In his 2005 video God is Design, the transformation of fleeting thoughts into enduring provocations is brought forth in decorative style assimilating the symbols of three religions with human cells.

These unassailable collisions are timely and deft handles on activism and beauty, rekindling that short-lived matrimony of politics and pleasure. It will be fascinating to find out how punchy Abdessemed gets in Glasgow. [Daniella Watson]