Breathe into Me
January 21, 2006- February 25, 2006
555 W 24th St
Born 1963 in Cairo,
Ghada Amer grew up in the politically charged period that followed the Six-Day War, and in 1974 moved to France with her family. Amer now lives and works in New York. This is the first exhibition of her work at
Gagosian Gallery in New York. Through her paintings, drawings, sculptures and gardens,
Ghada Amer has confronted the fundamental notions of feminine vs. masculine, East vs. West, and high art vs. craft for over a decade. She is best known for her use of the great symbols of feminist ire: embroidery as "woman's work," hardcore pornography, and religious fundamentalism. Moreover, Amer's work explores themes of love, sex and untenable desire. In her most recent paintings she both celebrates and challenges adolescent fantasies of love and sex using the visual language of fairytales and glossy pornographic images. Sexual imagery has always remained a mirage in Amer's work. The figures in Amer's paintings urgently offer themselves to the viewer, with open mouths and legs, yet their hypnotic repetition, the broken line of stitching and their truncated bodies render them ungraspable. The shameless display of the bodies becomes an apparition, appearing and disappearing through matted tufts of thread; the viewer must work to unravel the image, experiencing a combined sense of pleasure and frustration. From a distance Amer's paintings resemble those of Abstract Expressionism, as the canvases are often painted with bold blocks and drips of color, but upon closer inspection, the delicate embroidery reveals itself. Although Amer has a history of using language in her sculpture and installation projects, this exhibition will feature paintings that, for the first time, solely represent text. In these works Amer has embroidered the definitions of "desire," "pain," "torment," "longing" and "absence," with one word presented on each canvas. As an iconoclastic counterpart to her sexually explicit paintings, Amer continually asks that we contemplate the persistence, relevance, and especially the beauty of these words.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show| Location | | | Gallery | Gagosian Gallery | | Address | 555 W 24th St
New York (Chelsea)
NY, 10011
United States | | Phone | 212-741-1111 | | Fax | 212-741-9611 | | Hours | Tue-Sat 10-6 | |
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