Anna Boghiguian, ‘Sea & Earth’, 2024 

Anna Boghiguian, Sea & Earth, 2024

Seashell and tree branches cast in bronze. Presented by Sylvia Kouvali

About the Work

Sea & Earth features two new characters by Boghiguian, modelled on seashells from the artist’s collection. The bodies of the sculptures are formed of tree branches, uniting the ocean and the land. 

Boghiguian explains this work:

The concept started with using a seashell from my collection of seashells. 

In Alexandria by the sea near Qiatbay citadel, built by the Mamelukes, there is an aquarium as well as yacht clubs, and sellers of seashells and other sea products.

I was told that the big seashell was fished out from the Mediterranean and the inside of the seashell was fried, cooked and eaten by the sailor – whether a lie or the truth, it doesn’t matter. 

When I was approached to make a work for Frieze Sculpture, the seashell came to my mind. 

A mythical image – a story heard from the sea, a face created with wax to complete the missing snail. The body became a tree branch multiplied as a skirt.

The concept of uniting the sea and earth – that are major elements that we deal with daily – if our sea, gets threatened or our trees die, there may not be much life – the sea cleans the air; so does the tree, it cleans our universe. 

These metaphysical as well as a physical characters are supposed to be of average height but different from normal human body, in size and looks – they have no hands and no feet, their feet are branches, if and when moved make sounds, the sounds maybe according to the movement. 

When the wax figure & the wooden branches were cast into bronze, they have a shinier look, more a situation where the body has become immortalised by bronze, shining as well as muted –

Bronze goes back to Bronze Age, to the times when humans had a survival which defines our survival instincts – here self-centred, and self-interested – working and living collectively. 

The small shelled character, is a companion to the bigger sea shell character, both have the same story.

Land & Sea – the elements of nature, 

Air, fire, ether –

Wood is used to burn as well as build – branches of trees; trees feed, give out fruits, depending what tree and which fruit. The sea shell can give a snail, or it can give our jewels, sea sounds that when listened too, give the secret of the sea.

These two objects had a swing between them that was cancelled for sake of security. It was meant to be the pendulum of time – the free movement of the object. 

About the Artist

Anna Boghiguian (b. 1946, Cairo; lives and works in Cairo, Egypt) emerged as an artist from various movements around the globe, translating a nomadic experience and gaze into painting, installation, collages and books since the 1970s. As a travelling artist, she tells of how people, ideas, relationships and goods vary and evolve, sometimes bright and fluid, sometimes bound in inequality and oppression.

Her solo exhibitions include: ‘Period of Change’, The Douglas Hyde, Dublin (forthcoming, 2024); ‘A Clown Jumped into the Arena’, Galleria Franco Noero, Turin (2023); ‘Time of Change’, The Power Plant, Toronto (2023); KOW, Berlin (2022); ‘Sometimes unexpectedly the present meets the past’, IVAM, Valencia (2021); ‘A Short Long History’, S.M.A.K., Gent (2020); Anna Boghiguian Retrospective, Tate Modern, London (2019); ‘Anna Boghiguian: Le Carré, La Ligne et La Règle’, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris (2019). In 2015 Boghiguian received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. In 2023 she was awarded the Wolfgang Hahn Prize 2024. 

Frieze Sculpture is in The Regent’s Park, 18 September – 27 October 2024. No booking required, it is free and accessible to all. 

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Further Information 

Frieze Sculpture runs alongside Frieze London and Frieze Masters, 9 – 13 October.

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Digital Guide

Bloomberg Connects is the Official Digital Guide to Frieze Sculpture. The Bloomberg Connects app offers exclusive content including audio guides by Fatos Üstek, Curator of Frieze Sculpture, and the exhibiting artists. To access the Official Digital Guide, search for Bloomberg Connects on Apple Store and Google Play.

^{Main image: Anna Boghiguian, Sea & Earth, 2024, Sylvia Kouvali. Frieze Sculpture 2024. Photo by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/ Frieze}