Mucem

 Ghada AmerA retrospective exhibition across various locations in Marseille

Exhibition December 1st 2022—March 19th 2023

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3Mucem, a cultural hub in the Mediterranean

“A wide variety of events, a spectacular location and ex-cellent exhibitions have attracted over 10 million visitors to Mucem”

In an unique location at the entrance to Marseille’s Old Port, housed in a modern building designed by Rudy Ricciotti and Roland Carta on the historic site of the Fort Saint Jean, Mucem organizes major themed exhibitions and a variety of cultural events for every audience, such as lectures and debates, film projections, concerts and shows for young people.

The museum is a showcase for the cultural, social, scientific and political abundance of the Mediterranean world, from prehistoric times to the modern day. From anthro-pology, history and archaeology to art history and contemporary art; every discipline has its place.

Mucem was designed to be a cultural hub for the city of Marseille, and great interest has been shown by its 10 million visitors since its opening. The museum’s exhibitions have been noted for their quality, and the programme of conferences, concerts, pro-jections—which are sometimes held outdoors—has met with resounding success among an extremely diverse visiting public.

Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (J4 et Fort Saint-Jean) © Mucem—Photo : Cyrille Weiner— Architectes Rudy Ricciotti and Roland Carta

4Ghada Amer

Ghada Amer was born in Cairo in 1963. In 1974, her parents moved to Nice (France), where, ten years later, she trained at Villa Arson, before joining the Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques in Paris. During her studies, she met Reza Farkhondeh, with whom she went on to work closely. Ghada Amer experienced first-hand the difficulty of establishing oneself as a painter in the late 1980s, especially as a woman. She developed embroidered installations and canvases, together with sculptures, with painting gradually taking on a bigger role. Her work focuses on the condition and image of women, and develops a critical feminist reading of art history in the second half of the 20th century. Her work earned her an invitation from Harald Szeemann to exhibit at the Venice Biennale in 1999, where she received the Premia Unesco, and then at the Biennale of Sydney, the Whitney Biennial and the Brooklyn Museum. Since 1996, she has lived and worked in New York.https://www.ghadaamer.com/ https://www.marianneboeskygallery.com/artists/ghada-amer/

Curators

Philippe Dagen

Philippe Dagen is a 20th and 21st century art historian, pro-fessor at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and a critic for the Le Monde daily newspaper. He regularly works as curator or scientific advisor for preparing exhibitions, inclu-ding 1917 at Centre Pompidou-Metz (2012), De mémoire at Le Fresnoy (2003), and Charles Ratton at Musée du quai Branly—Jacques Chirac (2013).

Hélia Paukner

Hélia Paukner is the contemporary art curator at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (Mucem), where she is also responsible for the museum’s graffiti collections. She studied languages, literature and art history at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and then the Institut national du patrimoine (Paris). Her first curating experience was at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, where she worked as Scientific Assistant to the Director, Sylvie Ramond.

Ghada Amer, Self Portrait in Blue and Yellow, 2014, Ceramic, 25.51 × 34 × 6,2 in.

5Curators’ note

The exhibition presented by Mucem during winter 2022/2023 is a retrospective showing the different aspects of the artist’s work, including her most recent sculp-tural and pictorial research. Despite the monographic nature of the exhibition, the retrospective will show the artist within her historical and artistic context. Comparison with counterpoints will place her within the post-colonial context and demonstrate the place she has made for herself within art history. Paintings by artists admired and/or criticised by Ghada Amer will be chosen from French public collections, such as Claude Monet, Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages, or even Robert Ryman, Sam Francis and Barnett Newman. The artistic, cultural and social context of the United States became the backdrop to Ghada Amer’s everyday life and one of her main fields of observation, such that it is important to place her work within this context. This contextualisation will help position the artist more accurately within the current art scene.

The exhibition is designed around two distinct thematic components, in response to the cross-cutting themes of Ghada Amer’s work:

I. East-West (± 300 m²)

The first part will focus on the artist’s transcultural and international journey from being born in Cairo, Egypt, trained in France and now living in New York. The East, translatability of a culture, religion and political events will be discussed through her works. This part will be shown in the Georges Henri Rivière building in Fort Saint-Jean, the historical part of Mucem.

II. Women and feminism (± 300 m²)

The second part of the retrospective exhibition will be dedicated to the issues surrounding women and the feminist critique of art history which can be seen in Ghada Amer’s work. This will be made possible thanks to a collaboration with the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC - regional collection of contemporary art), which is also located in Marseille’s port district.

III. ... and also.... monumental works

Close to Mucem and the FRAC, works will be produced in addition to the two retrospective components, in order to create a kind of Ghada Amer trail through Marseille. A garden sculpture will be created in the Fort Saint-Jean gardens and a monu-mental work will be produced in the Vieille Charité chapel, a venue in which the Marseille museums regularly programme contemporary art.

Ghada Amer, All oppression creates a state of war, 2019, garden-sculpture, diam. 429.1 in.

6Information

A retrospective exhibition presented by Mucem, between December 2022 and March 2023, in multiple locations across Marseille. Proposal to be adapted to the host venue.

Types of works exhibited

—paintings (painted and/or embroidered canvases)—graphic works —sculptures (ceramic, bronze)—installations —garden sculptures—videos

Selective bibliography

—Eccher, Danilo (dir. sc.), Ghada Amer, cat expo MACRO, Rome, 25-05-2007 - 30-09-2007, Rome: Electa et MACRO ed., 2007—Reilly, Maureen (et al.), Ghada Amer, New York: Gregory R. Miller & Company, 2010—Saint-Gelais, Thérèse, Ghada Amer, cat expo Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 02-02-2012 - 22-04-2012, Montréal: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 2012

Sources of works

—French public collections. The Musée d’Art moderne et Contemporain in Saint-Etienne and the Lambert Collection in Avignon have been identified as potential lenders.—artist’s collection (USA, New York)—other New York collections

Exhibition cost

Subject to negotiation

Ghada Amer, 100 Words of Love, 2010, Epoxy resin and acrylic, 67 × 72 × 67.75 in.

Ghada Amer, Majnûn (The mad (Lover)), 1996, installation: embroidery on canvas, metal, 3 x (61.4 × 35.8 × 20 in.), FRAC-PACA, Marseille (FR), Inv.: 97.334

Ghada Amer, La Femme qui repasse, 1992, acrylic and embroidery on canvas, 39.3 × 33.5 in.

Ghada Amer, Belle, 2014, acrylic and embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 72 × 64 in.

Ghada Amer, Rainbow Lulu, 2018, acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 58 × 70 in.

Ghada Amer, Sculpture en noir, rouge et blanc, 2017, glazed Ceramic with porcelain inlay, 22.5 × 34 × 21 in.

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Some pictures are presented for information purposes only. This is a working document not intended for widespread distribution.Pp. 2 and 11, photo © Mucem / Cyrille WeinerCoordination : Juliette Gracy

Contact

Agathe GuillouHead of International relationsagathe.guillou@mucem.org +33 (0)4 84 35 14 67www.mucem.org/le-mucem/international

Mucem Esplanade du J47, promenade Robert Laffont CS 1035113213 France

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Mécènes fondateursGhada Amer, My Nympheas n°2, 2018, embroidery and gel medium on canvas, 64 × 72 in.