Abdelkader Benchamma commissioned to transform Villa Albertine’s Ballroom ceiling in New York: NEWS MUSEUM
Villa Albertine has commissioned Abdelkader Benchamma to create a monumental ceiling installation for the Ballroom of the historic Payne Whitney Mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York. The work, titled Stella Terrae, will be unveiled in September 2026.
Selected from 225 submissions, Benchamma’s project will transform one of Villa Albertine’s most emblematic spaces, where the French institution hosts cultural, intellectual, and diplomatic events.
Conceived as a vast mural created directly in situ, Stella Terrae continues Benchamma’s exploration of cosmology, natural phenomena, scientific representation, and the limits of human perception.
The title refers to stella terrae—“star of the earth”—a mysterious substance historically associated with meteorite falls and surrounded by contradictory scientific explanations and mythology. From this starting point, Benchamma proposes a contemporary vision of the sky at a moment when outer space is increasingly understood as a territory for exploration, control, and exploitation.
The installation draws from the long history of humanity’s attempts to understand and represent the cosmos, including painted ceilings, astronomical diagrams, the Nebra Sky Disk, dating from around 1600 BCE, and the seventh-century Dunhuang Star Atlas, one of the earliest surviving maps of the stars.
“At its core, the mural tells an essential story: humanity’s relationship with the sky, shaped by observation, knowledge, and imaginative narratives,” Benchamma explains.
From the Centre Pompidou to New York
Working between Paris and Montpellier, Abdelkader Benchamma graduated from the École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
In 2015, he received the Drawing Now Prize and was invited by The Drawing Center in New York to inaugurate its mural drawing program with Representation of Dark Matter (2015–2016).
In 2024, Benchamma was a finalist for the Marcel Duchamp Prize, presenting Au bord des mondes at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2026, the Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló (EACC) in Spain dedicated a major solo exhibition to his work.
From November through the end of December 2026, he will also participate in Villa Albertine’s residency program in New York.
The Villa Albertine commission marks another significant development in Benchamma’s practice, bringing his drawing beyond the conventional limits of paper and into direct dialogue with architecture.
Located within the historic Payne Whitney Mansion, Villa Albertine’s Ballroom overlooks Fifth Avenue and functions as one of the institution’s principal gathering spaces. Benchamma’s intervention forms part of a broader transformation of the building in which contemporary artistic creation is introduced into its historic architecture.
The commission was developed in collaboration with the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) and made possible through the principal support of the Sisley-d’Ornano Foundation, with additional support from the French Heritage Society’s New York Chapter and Ann and Bill Van Ness.
Abdelkader Benchamma
Stella Terrae, 2026
Villa Albertine — Payne Whitney Mansion
New York, USA
Unveiling: September 2026
Lead image: Abdelkader Benchamma, Au bord des mondes, Marcel Duchamp Prize, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2024. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley.
