Description
Book SynopsisOver the past 20 years, Ghada Amer''s quest to forge an aesthetic language for the oppression of women has established her as one of the most important and widely exhibited contemporary artists. Born in Cairo in 1963, and moving to France at age 11, from early on in life Amer was witness to the cross-cultural subjugation of women, whether from increasing religious conservatism in Egypt, or via the subtler machinations of Western commodity culture. In Amer''s hand-embroidered paintings, delicate abstract tracings of sewn thread are counterposed with often quiet but sometimes confrontational erotic imagery. Trawling all manner of materials from fashion magazines, children''s fairy tales, pornography, dictionaries, the Koran and medieval Arabic manuscripts, Amer challenges their authority, highlighting their exclusions and countering with a powerfully asserted female subject. This handsome monograph is the first publication to document the full breadth of her art, with numerous images of
