{"id":1273,"date":"2021-12-01T00:15:50","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T00:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghadaamer.com\/?p=1273"},"modified":"2021-12-01T05:17:28","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T05:17:28","slug":"modern-millefleurs-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ghadaamer.com\/gardens\/modern-millefleurs-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Millefleurs – Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The original installation of Ghada Amer\u2019s Women\u2019s Qualities<\/em> gardens took shape in Pusan, South Korea, in 2000. At the Metropolitan Museum of Pusan, Ghada Amer asked Korean museum staff members and visiting artists what traits they would commonly attribute to women. She then planted the answers – virtuous, chaste, submissive, fair skin, large breasts, rich, diligent, sensual<\/em>– in block letters by using a local flower whose deep green plant blooms into deeper red flowers once a year for two months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though the gardens were created at the start of the twenty-first century, the qualities in Amer\u2019s work echo, build upon, and contrast with women\u2019s traits communicated by gardens and flora in early sixteenth-century European tapestries. As pointed out in my previous blog post Modern Millefleurs- Part I, the decorative flowers and gardens in Renaissance tapestries play an important symbolic role in communicating meaning and visually representing women\u2019s qualities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One such tapestry is The Unicorn Surrenders to a Maiden<\/em>, part of the Unicorn Tapestries<\/em> series that one can view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In this hanging, the unicorn has been subdued by a maiden, who, barely visible today in the fragmented tapestry (only her hand, grasping the unicorn\u2019s mane, and her sleeve, under his beard, remain) is depicted in an enclosed garden (hortus conclusus<\/em>), a space often used as a metaphor to represent the purity of a maiden (1). Although the maiden who tames the unicorn is key to the story in the tapestry, the disappearance of most of her figure from the canvas (the result of damage to the tapestries after their looting in 1793) erase the qualities she is meant to communicate from the image (3). Though Amer does not destroy or erase the qualities she planted, in choosing flowers that bloom only once a year, the intensity of the display is subject to change. Nonetheless, though the words are less attention-grabbing when the plants are green, the qualities in the Pusan Garden\u2013 like all women\u2019s qualities\u2014have literally taken root in Amer\u2019s garden and are visible all year long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n