GHADA AMER

Ghada Amer was born in Cairo in 1963. In 1974, her parents relocated to France, where she began her artistic training ten years later at Villa Arson in Nice, France. She currently lives and works between New York and Paris and has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Whitney Biennale, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.

“I believe that all women should like their bodies and use them as tools of seduction,” Amer stated; and in her wellknown erotic embroideries, she at once rejects oppressive laws set in place to govern women’s attitudes toward their bodies and repudiates first-wave feminist theory that the body must be denied to prevent victimization. By depicting explicit sexual acts with the delicacy of needle and thread, their significance assumes a tenderness that simple objectification ignores.

Amer continuously allows herself to explore the dichotomies of an uneasy world and confronts the language of hostility and finality with unsettled narratives of longing and love. Her work addresses first and foremost the ambiguous and transitory nature of the paradox that arises when searching for concrete definitions of East and West, feminine and masculine, art and craft. Through her paintings, sculptures and public garden projects, Amer takes traditional notions of cultural identity, abstraction, and religious fundamentalism and turns them on their heads.

Clockwise from top left:

Ghada Amer

Thought #6 with a blue base and clown , 2017

Glazed ceramic

26.7 x 6.7 x 6.7 cm

Ghada Amer

Thought #13 writing in white and pink , 2017

Glazed ceramic

19.1 x 10.2 x 6.4 cm

Ghada Amer

Thought #9 a hand with the turquoise , 2017

Glazed ceramic

19.7 x 7 x 6.7 cm

Images courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

Hany Rashed

Hany Rashed is a self-taught artist, born in 1975. Before starting his own artistic journey, Rashed was an electrician at the Egyptian government-owned television. Nevertheless, he worked closely with renowned artist Mohamed Abla, who quickly became his mentor for ten years before starting his own artistic journey in 2003.

Over the past dozen years, Rashed has produced an extremely original body of work experimenting with a wide range of techniques and constantly reinventing himself. His predilection for the use of media images pushes the audience to recognize the banality and damage caused by the excessive exposure to Western media, highlighting the depersonalization of the individual. Rashed’s use of a wide range of techniques, from monotypes to painting, collages, and wooden installations, allow him to give striking commentary on the urban youth culture in Egypt. He has used many images from lifestyle advertising and celebrity coverage, on top of which he adds poignant faceless subjects, to amplify the lack of individuality found in today’s societies.

Rashed is an avid photographer, carrying his camera recurrently to capture scenes from the Egyptian street. He uses many techniques to ‘convert’ his photographs in other media, such as sculpture, installation and painting. His photo archive is a major inspiration for much of his work. After the 2011 revolution, Rashed has played a leading role in documenting part of contemporary Egyptian history. Through sarcastic production, he used slogans and tabloid texts to raise questions and challenge public reactions of political events.

Rashed was engaged in many international group exhibitions in England, Greece, Dubai, Senegal, Spain, and Sweden, among others. He currently lives and works in Cairo.

Hany Rashed

Western Journey (28 pieces), 2017

Collage

30 x 30 cm each