Art or Craft? Performing Ghada Amer’s Sculptures
May 1, 2023
Walking the high streets, a woman glances at shopfronts left and right. Suddenly, a laced gown catches her eye in the window of a store
Current Exhibition
Ghada Amer’s garden installation “Love Grave” is on show at the Biennale of OOsterhout, Netherlands from 3 June to 16 July 2023. Installed in the garden of the monasteries of the Heilige Driehoek, Ghada Amer’s garden consists of the four letters (capitalized) spelling the word “love” dug out six feet into the ground. By combining the abstract concept of love with the confronting image of burial and death, Ghada Amer’s garden highlights the connection between love and death, wholeness and emptiness. This is Ghada Amer’s second rendition of this garden, inspired by the horrors of the war in Ukraine.
Ghada Amer is an internationally recognized artist with a vast range of works that include not only painting, but also bronze sculptures, clay ceramics, prints, installations, videos, and outdoor gardens. She is represented by major galleries in New York, London, Korea, and South Africa. Her works are sought after by private collectors, and are a permanent part of key museum collections around the world (including for example the Centre Georges Pompidou, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Barjeel Art Foundation, the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Arab Museum of Modern Art and the Fond National d’art contemporain).
It is while in art school that I realized that the history of art and of painting especially was almost exclusively dominated by men. And it is this realization that led me to embroider and to paint with thread. I am a painter above all. Thread and needles are my brush.
Walking the high streets, a woman glances at shopfronts left and right. Suddenly, a laced gown catches her eye in the window of a store
In a garden, slithering in the grass, small snails quickly cowl back into their shells. They are hiding, perhaps from a predator or from curious
The shadowy outline of the two backlight figures gives them an air of mystery: these lovers’ stories are as opaque as their silhouettes. The functional
Boris Vian
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Lorsque meurt un amour
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Lorsque des coeurs sont lourds
Sur la terre entière
Pendant quarante jours
Des larmes amères
Engloutiraient les tours
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Lorsque meurt un enfant
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Au rire des méchants
S’il pleuvait des larmes
En flots gris et glacés
Des larmes amères
Rouleraient le passé
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Quand on tue les coeurs purs
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Quand on crève sous les murs
Sur la terre entière
Il y aurait déluge
Des larmes amères
Des coupables et des juges
S’il pleuvait des larmes
Chaque fois que la mort
Brandissant les armes
Fait sauter les décors
Sur la terre entière
Il n’y aurait plus rien
Qu’les larmes amères
des deuils et du destin.