ADEL ABDESSEMED — From Here to Eternity The imagery of the large drawings in black chalk on military tarpaulins have three precise references, all connected with the kiss, an amorous act of great significance. The first is a sequence from the film From Here to Eternity (1953). The image is that of the embrace of two nearly naked, wet bodies on a tropical beach - an unusually erotic scene of less formal and more direct sensuality with respect to the Hollywood standarts of time. The navy prohibited programming of the film for troops, branding it as “derogatory of a sister service”. The theme is addressed in a second image with a different reference. in this case, it is based on the painting Les Amants by René Magritte, dated 1928. Two versions exist, the second of which is found at MoMA New York. The couple, shown as two busts embracing and kissing, are fully clothed in this case, and their heads are covered by cloth, preventing them from seeing each other or having direct physical contact. The image evokes Magritte’s idea of a bourgeoisie that seems to be without individual identity by its own choice, as well as the typically surrealist dream dimension employed by the artist. The third iconographic theme is that of a frame from the film The Kiss which Alva Edison produced in 1896, directed by William Heise at Black Maria, the world’s first film production studio, which Edison founded in 1893 at West Orange, New Jersey, and then closed the move it to New York in 1901. The film was the reenactment of a scene, played by My Irwin and John Rice, from a musical, The Widow Jones, which has opened in New York one year earlier. It was the first Kiss on screen. Here the features of the actors can be seen, including their hairstyles, poses, hidden by the cloth covering the heads. This the first two images are taken out of time, as is appropriate for the ecstasy of love.