The first touring retrospective of Ghada Amer’s work, Ghada Amer: Happily Ever After will feature sculptures, photographs, videos, performances, installations, drawings, and collaborations from every part of this renowned artist’s career. Amer is best known for her stitched canvases with dangling threads, many of them with erotic motifs, but her entire body of work is unified not only by the search for formal beauty but by thematic concerns such as the representation of female sexuality and pleasure; the negotiation of the restrictions of traditionally female roles; and Western perceptions of Middle Eastern culture.

Curated by AFA Senior Curator Maura Reilly, the exhibition will be organized chronologically and thematically, beginning with Amer’s early sketchbooks and sewn canvases, which show the genesis of her ideas about patterning and embroidery. Works such as Woman Ironing (Femme qui repasse) and other narrative pieces from her “domestic series” will illustrate Amer’s use of embroidery, a traditional “woman’s tool,” to depict tasks traditionally relegated to women, such as sewing, shopping, and cooking. A section on fairy tales will explore gender clichés by juxtaposing images of Disney princesses with erotic and autoerotic imagery. Happily Ever After will also include examples of Amer’s collaborations with Iranian artist and partner Reza Farkhondeh, which combine Farkhondeh’s wash technique and Amer’s linear strength to comment on gender clichés, eroticism, politics, and the history of painting. A final section will focus on contemporary world politics, with Amer’s I Love Paris photographic series depicting the artist and two friends wearing burqas in front of Parisian monuments; garden projects such as Love Grave, a war memorial; and her Salon courbé installation, which considers the Arabic definition of “terrorism.”

Born in Cairo, Egypt, and educated in France, Amer, who is currently based in New York, has presented work in many solo and group exhibitions throughout the world. With Intimate Confessions in 2000, she was the first Arab artist to have a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Ghada Amer: Happily Ever After will travel to 4 venues.

*This is when the tour is expected to begin. The exact date will depend upon the needs of the participating institutions.

For more information, contact Assistant Curator of Exhibitions Amy Brandt at 212.988.7700 ext. 266 or abrandt@afaweb.org.