About the work
My body my choice formed part of Ghada Amer’s 2022 London exhibition of the same title, the artist’s first solo show in the city in 20 years.
Amer’s work addresses the ambiguous, transitory nature of the paradox that arises when searching for concrete definitions of East and West, feminine and masculine, art and craft. Recognizing that women are taught to model behaviours and traits shaped by others, and that art history – and the history of painting in particular – are shaped largely by expressions of masculinity, Amer’s work actively subverts these frameworks through aesthetics and content. Her practice explores the complicated nature of identity as it is developed through cultural and religious norms as well as personal longings and understandings of the self.
Since 1997, Amer has widened her artistic practice by creating gardens in outdoor public spaces. She has conceived, drawn and built gardens in a range of locations across several continents, most recently in France, the US (California, New York City, Colorado), Mexico and Morocco. The inclusion of the work My body my choice in her London exhibition marked the first time that the artist had shown a garden work in the UK. Amer’s approach innovates the very genre of artistic gardens, creating a hybrid model where art, public space and spectators merge and are transformed through a dynamic encounter.
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About the artist
Ghada Amer (b.1963, Cairo) grew up in Nice, France and completed her undergraduate degrees and MFA at Villa Arson École Nationale Supérieure. Amer’s practice spans painting, sculpture, ceramics, works on paper, as well as garden and mixed-media installations.
Amer’s work is in public collections around the world, including The Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, NY; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Samsung Museum, Seoul.
Amer has exhibited in prestigious group shows and biennials such as the Johannesburg Biennale, 1997; Whitney Biennial, 2000; the Venice Biennales of 1999, 2005 and 2007 and DesertX, 2021. In 2022/3 Amer had her retrospective ‘A Woman’s Voice Is Revolution’ at MUCEM in Marseille
For more information, please visit the gallery websites: Goodman Gallery and Pace Gallery
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