GHADA AMER
Painter, illustrator, sculptor, and performance and installation artist Ghada Amer was born in Cairo in 1963. When she was 11 years old, her family moved to France, where Amer attended school in Paris and Nice. In 1989, she received an MFA from the École nationale supérieure d’art in Nice, and began exhibiting her works in the 1990s and now she lives and works in New York. Her work was the subject of a Brooklyn Museum survey show in 2008, titled Love Has No End and recently included in solo exhibitions at Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré, Tours and Dallas Contemporary, Dallas. Amer’s work is represented in many American and international permanent collections, including Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; Art Institute of Chicago, USA; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; and Tel Aviv Museum, Israel. A central theme in her work is the equality of women and female sexuality. By using embroidery on pornographic images, for example, Amer attempts to undermine the typical use of such images by alluding to female pleasure. In other words, that deals with social issues, including sexuality, female identity, and Islamic culture. Through her intricate fabric work, the artist seeks to present a representation of the nude female body which is autonomous from burden of the male gaze through needlework, a traditionally female discipline. For example, in her work Snow White Without the Dwarves, Amer stitches a doe-eyed Snow White with images of naked women touching themselves in the background, a symbol of the princess’s sexual liberation.
“I liked the idea of representing women through the medium of thread because it is so identified with femininity,” she has said of her work. “I wanted to paint a woman with embroidery, too.” Amer’s work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial and PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, at the Venice Biennale, the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, at the Johannesburg Biennial, and the Istanbul Biennale. She participated in the Sydney and Whitney Biennales, and was awarded the UNESCO prize at the 1999 Venice Biennale. She also was the first Arab artist to be given a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which was presented in 2000. The artist currently lives and works in New York, NY. Her work is held in the collections of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.
“I want to be known as a British male artist or an American white male artist, because they get a lot of attention,” the Egyptian-born artist Ghada Amer says in Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath’s recent book Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring: Conversations with Arab Artists. “They don’t have shows like ‘Women Artists in the 21st Century.’”
Artspace Magazine Interview: “Ghada Amer, Feminist Provocateur of Middle Eastern Art, on Experimenting With an Ancient Medium’’
Amer is known for her equally wry and provocative embroidered paintings, which rework pornographic source material to address the oppression of women and explore female sexuality from a feminist angle. In the past few years she has moved from painting into sculpture, experimenting with bronze and, most recently, ceramics—an increasingly popular medium and one that, like embroidery, that has long been associated with craft and female labor. Some of these new works look like details taken from Amer’s paintings; women gaze seductively at the viewer, smoke, kiss, caress, or masturbate. Amer’s experiments with sculpture have been well received. When Doha’s Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art commissioned her to create a work as part of their debut show in 2010, Amer produced One Hundred Words of Love, a spherical resin sculpture comprised of all of love’s synonyms in Arabic. She then took up bronze casting, and one of her bronzes was subsequently acquired by the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and shown at the museum’s inaugural exhibition in the UAE capital last November. And for the past two years Amer has been an artist in residence at the nonprofit New York ceramics studio Greenwich House Pottery, where she has been honing her skills in private classes. She is now renovating a larger studio to accommodate her new sculpture practice, to share the space with Reza Farkhondeh, the Iranian-born artist with whom she often collaborates on paintings. With a show of Amer’s ceramics inaugurating Leila Heller’s brand new Dubai outpost, Myrna Ayad caught up with the artist to talk about her new favorite medium and what it’s like to be a feminist figurative artist in the Middle East.
The Sleeping Girl, 2014. Ceramic, 33 x 30 x 7.5 in / 83.8 x 76.2 x 19 cm. Photo: Brian Buckley, courtesy Cheim & Read and Leila Heller Gallery
What made you want to take up sculpture, after many years of working with painting and embroidery? It started with an abstract idea. When I worked in bronze it was because I wanted to do a hollow sculpture, and then when I did ceramics, it was because I wanted to do sculpture in colors. Working with ceramics was quite the game-changer. I love to experiment, but I couldn’t do it in my bronze works; there was a team doing it and I felt handicapped because I like to be hands-on. Also, it is very expensive to get someone to do it for me and when you pay someone, you can’t experiment. What were some challenges of learning a new medium? There was a lot of sweat and exercise, and my back hurt! In the beginning it felt disgusting, but now I love it—I love putting my hands in the clay. It doesn’t feel ‘dirty’ anymore. I thought I knew how to do everything, and figured I only needed three months to learn how to do ceramics. I was so arrogant! Greenwich House Pottery offered me a residency for two years, and it ended in August. I’m exhausted, but at the same time so upset that a great experience is over. I’d go twice a week to class and then practice alone—no wheel, hand-building only.
Froissé, 2014. Ceramic, 9.5 x 7.5 x 8 in (24.13 x 19.05 x 20.32 cm). Photo: Brian Buckley, courtesy Cheim & Read and Leila Heller Gallery
There is a new physicality involved in this experimentation, and also new devices. What is the synergy like between material and machine? It’s all about the tool, and the vocabulary of clay. I am discovering a new medium. I like the spontaneity of just doing. I color first, and then I carve. And this is a great feeling, because my hands are used to drawing—they’re not used to forming something. What happens to your drawing while you’re working on the ceramics? I still paint, and my method has been impacted. Ceramics mean a lot of experimentation, especially with color. You have to do a lot of testing before you make a piece. What I am doing now with my paintings is that I experiment in the same way before I make a painting. I did not do that before. How has working with ceramics changed your understanding of color? With ceramics, colors can change as the piece is baked and glazed. Ceramics is science—it’s chemistry. I struggled with color and did a lot of tile testing. For some reason, I can’t find the right green or purple! That’s why there isn’t any green or purple in the works. I don’t paint with glaze, and natural colors such as brown don’t interest me—they’re so limiting. I will be showing new paintings at Cheim & Read soon, and I have applied the same techniques from ceramics to the paintings. Basically, I used something that I wouldn’t have been able to use had I not done ceramics.
Lady in Black, 2015. Ceramic, 48 x 22 x 10.5 in (121.92 x 55.88 x 26.67 cm). Photo: Brian Buckley, courtesy Cheim & Read and Leila Heller Gallery
How have your dealers reacted to your interest in ceramics? It was bit of a battle, in a way, in that it’s a new market and I didn’t feel much enthusiasm from them, although people helped me with logistics. Adam Welch, the director of Greenwich House Pottery and my mentor, was really behind me. In the Middle East, however, people are more interested in innovation. How did the collaboration with Leila Heller come about? I’ve known Leila for a long time, and I’m very impressed with what she’s doing for the Middle East and in the Middle East. When she asked me to do this, I wanted to support her. A gallery in the Middle East has never approached me. Leila is brave—she is making a statement with this show. Speaking of which, some of your more erotic works may be have to be censored, due to the laws in Dubai. How are you dealing with this restriction?
White Squares, 2013. Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 50 x 50 inches / 127 x 127 cm. Photo: Brian Buckley, courtesy Cheim & Read and Leila Heller Gallery I can’t show some of the work I love. I do have to censor myself in the show, but I’ll be showing works that incorporate writing. One is a collaboration between Reza and I that says “man fucks woman, subject verb object,” and the others feature text from Simone de Beauvoir and the Arab feminist, writer, activist, and physician Nawal Al-Saadawi. Even some of your new abstract pieces look very sensual. Is this what you intended for them? While making them I carved the clay with a tool and, then grabbed what I carved with my left hand. Then when I looked at my left hand, I discovered that the left hand was making ‘unconscious sculpture,’ a little like ecriture automatiques. I loved that there was something kind of automatic about them. With sculpture, you plan everything; these are more like Expressionist paintings, more spontaneous. There’s a lot of feeling.
NOTABLE EXHIBITIONS “You Are a Lady’’ 2015
OF GHADA AMER
You Are A Lady, 2015 Paintings, Acrylic and embroidery on canvas 182.9 x 162.6 cm. (72 x 64 in.) Ghada Amer’s first solo show at the Berlin Gallery and her first individual exhibition in Berlin in a long while. Erotic motifs and delicate embroidery. In them, she succeeds in her ironic commentary upon institutionalized role models, while self-confidently taking on painting as a medium. Amer painting and embroidery, because she takes the former a classically male medium, and the latter a child by hand performed by women. “In my art history classes there were no references to female artists-just men, men, men. So I thought that would be a good way to talk about women and language, “says Amer,” and that’s why I wanted to paint and then sew on it [the canvas] -out of necessity, and not because of I love crafts.’’ Ghada Amer focused in the last years on creating works out of clay. On thin panels, Amer paints with liquefied colored clay or folds them into abstract, colorful sculptures. The exhibition shows the scope of the Amer’s work by bringing together her ceramics with a selection of her recent canvases, a steel sculpture and a number of works on paper that are the result of her collaboration with Iranian artist Reza Farkhondeh. Questioning relationships of power by expressing archetypes of gender and sexual representations are always at her work’s heart. The exhibition will open in the context of Gallery Weekend Berlin’s VIP Preview on April 29 from 11 am. The official opening will be the evening from 6 to 9 pm. She deals differently with clay. She is enthusiastic about the medium. They were challenged by the confrontation of the material since 2014. Amer’s first works of art were large cuboids made of clay, although they were not realized for technical reasons. Disappointed, but undaunted, she turned to more natural shapes, and experimented with various additions, such as paper, in order to lend her abstract, colorful sculptures her rough contours, while at the same time stabilizing the material. During a two-year residency at Greenwich House Pottery, they created works that are unrivaled in the worlds of both art and ceramics. Adam Welch, the director of Greenwich House, referring to Amer’s second, says: “You can not underestimate the difficulty of working with large, yet thin plates of clay.” large group of works. Apart from the above-mentioned abstracts, Ghada Amer’s portraits of women are painted in liquid clay on both sides of the thin clay plates, which they bends until they stand upright. With ceramics, canvases, a steel sculpture, and works on paper, the exhibition displays almost the spectrum of America’s oeuvre. The works on paper, made in collaboration with the Iranian artist Reza Farkhondeh, developed organically out of the close friendship between the two artists. They are both satisfied with the result. The egg-shaped, delicate steel sculpture “Blue Bra Girls” (2012) who named the anonymous demonstrator who was brutally beaten in front of the world press during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011.
‘‘Amer painting and embroidery, because she takes the former a classically male medium and the latter a child by hand performed by women’’
“The girl with the blue bra, “since that was the only feature by which she could be identified. The girls are ornamenting the sculpture are not victims. Rather, they pose self-confidently, giving their viewers a challenging look. Nudity never makes Ghada Amer’s figures seem vulnerable or shameful, because in all of America’s work, regardless of the medium, style and political demands assert themselves. Questioning power structures, gender stereotypes, and the depiction of female sexuality are some of the topics that form the basis of each of her works. With images of self-confident, tantalizing women, Amer opposes institutionalized sexism. She finds her source materials in magazines. She’s been using more motifs from erotic magazines, which she copies several times by hand, making them her own. Amer is interested in shifting and testing the boundaries between pornography and nudity. What makes something obscene or pornographic? How does the female gaze differ from the male observer? How does this influence the way in which both view the world? And how do you perceive art?
“What makes something obscene or pornographic? How does the female gaze differ from the male observer? How does this influence the way in which both view the world?”
“Dark Continent” 2018
Ghada Amer marks the history of art using alternative methods and tools associated with the work of women. She features archetypes of happiness, love and the vision of women conveyed by the media.
Dark Continent, 2018 Paintings, Acrylic and embroidery on canvas; Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York
“Cactus Painting� 2019
Thousands of cacti in various shapes and colours impose a virtuoso pattern on the ground, a manipulated and sharp reference to the great tradition of western abstract painting this hostile garden is a formidable way of tackling the question of female stereotypes.
After the great monographic exhibition devoted to him by the CCC in 2000, Ghada Amer returns to France with an unprecedented proposal that showcases her recent New York productions. A rare opportunity to rediscover the work of this essential artist of the international contemporary scene through two exhibitions at the CCC OD.
Rainbow Lulu 2018 Acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 150 x 178 cm 59 1/8 x 70 1/8 in
Pilar Corrias is pleased to announce the representation of New York-based artist, Ghada Amer (b. 1963) The close collaboration with the artist will be inaugurated with an exhibition of new painting and sculpture in London in 2020. Ghada Amer’s work addresses first and foremost the ambiguous, 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.
CURRICULUM VITAE EDUCATION 1989 MFA in Painting, Villa Arson EPIAR, Nice, France. SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009
Rainbow Girls, Cheim and Read, New York, NY, USA Référence à Elle, Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea. The Other I, Tina Kim Gallery, New York, NY, USA. Ghada Amer, Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal, Montreal. 100 Words of Love, Cheim & Read, New York, NY, USA. No Romance, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.
2008 Color Misbehavior, Cheim & Read, New York, NY, USA. 2007 Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh: Roses Off Limits, Pace Prints, New York, NY, USA. 2006 Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh: Collaborative Drawings, Tina Kim Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA.
2004 Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh: A New Collaboration on Paper, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore. 2003 Love Has No End, Elisabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. 2002 Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh, Collaborative Drawings, Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea. Another Spring, Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea. Le Salon Courbé, Francesca Minini Gallery, Milan, Italy. Ghada Amer, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, MACRO, Rome, Italy. Breathe Into Me, Gagosian Gallery, New York (Chelsea), NY, USA. Beverly Hills, Gagosian Gallery, CA, USA. Ghada Amer, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, Spain. Ghada Amer, Forefront 45, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, USA. Ghada Amer, Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy. Ghada Amer, Gagosian Gallery, London, England. Ghada Amer, De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Encyclopedia of Pleasure, Deitch Projects, New York, NY, USA. Reading Between the Threads, Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway. Traveled to: Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany and Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden. Ghada Amer Drawings, Anadil Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel. Intimate Confessions, Deitch Projects, New York, NY, USA. Traveled: to Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel and Kunst-werke, Berlin, Germany. Ghada Amer, Centre Culturel Contemporain (C.C.C.), Tours, France. Ghada Amer, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain. Ghada Amer, Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, NY, USA. Ghada Amer, Espace Karim Francis, Cairo, Egypt. Ghada Amer, Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, NY, USA. Ghada Amer, Centre Jules Verne, Brétigny-sur-Orge, France. Ghada Amer, Galerie Météo, Paris, France Ghada Amer, Hôpital Ephémère, Paris, France
Ă?ndice Introduction Interview Four projects - Exhibitions of Ghada Amer Curriculum Vitae