{"id":1350,"date":"2022-05-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghadaamer.com\/?p=1350"},"modified":"2022-04-24T18:03:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T18:03:22","slug":"my-body-my-choice-ghada-amers-may-2022-solo-show-at-the-goodman-gallery-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ghadaamer.com\/paintings\/my-body-my-choice-ghada-amers-may-2022-solo-show-at-the-goodman-gallery-london\/","title":{"rendered":"My Body, my Choice: Ghada Amer\u2019s May 2022 solo show at the Goodman Gallery, London"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
4 May 2022 \u2013 28 May 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghada Amer\u2019s show at Goodman Gallery in London opens on 4 May 2022 and runs till the end of the month. Entitled My Body My Choice<\/em>, this is Ghada Amer\u2019s first solo exhibition in the UK in twenty years. The artist brings together a new body of work that includes a garden installation, five of the artist\u2019s signature thread and canvas paintings as well as two large flat sculptures (known also as drawings in space).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghada Amer\u2019s garden installation takes up the well-known battle cry promoted by the women\u2019s and gender equality movement since the 1970s \u201cmy body my choice\u201d and spells each of its letters in a red resin box filled with plants. While over the past fifty years, this tagline has been co-opted by a number of groups around the world with entirely contradictory agendas, Ghada Amer\u2019s garden, like her art in general, reminds us of the early intent of the mantra, that of promoting women\u2019s rights and equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an interview with Sahar Amer in April 2022, Ghada Amer states: \u201cIn Western societies, there is an assumption, especially among the younger generations, that the battle of the sexes has been won, that women have been liberated, and that their rights are secure. And yet, we are witnessing today a sharp regression of women\u2019s rights and a stark rise of violence against women. However, in countries where one assumes women\u2019s rights to be limited or absent, such as in Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, or Mexico, women of the younger generation know they have a lot to gain from fighting for those very same rights that are eroding in the West. So they are not letting down their guard and they are continuing to fight fiercely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phrases that Ghada Amer sculpts for her garden architecture are similar in that regard to the sentences that she embroiders on her canvases. These sentences are taken from a number of male and female authors from different backgrounds and they are intended to remind us of central teachings and wisdom related to women\u2019s rights. Amer says that \u201cby reading and repeating these sentences, they will hopefully become mantras, incantations that the viewer will end up remembering.\u201d She adds that \u201cwomen\u2019s rights can never be taken for granted. Women must continuously mobilize, fight, and never let their arduously acquired rights decline, fade away and vanish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The citations that are sculpted in Ghada Amer\u2019s gardens or carefully embroidered on her paintings do not speak directly about the status of women in any particular society. They do not address what is going on in the United States or the Middle East per se. Rather, her paintings and gardens remind the viewer that women must be vigilant over the rights they have acquired and never take for granted their liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n