I am still giddy this morning… because last night, I kissed one of my favorite artist.
Don’t get too excited. She was saying good bye to some friends and since I was leaving too, I joined the group, lounged towards her and gave her the traditional french double kiss on the cheeks -I don’t think she was expecting it.

I know, it’s not much to report home. But I am so thrilled to meet her after having been touched by her work for longer than I can remember.
Ghada Amer is Egyptian, raised in France and currently works in New York. All the pictures I had seen of her portrayed her in a very severe manner which, in my mind, did not match the colorful erotic motifs she creates. So I was kind of nervous going to the opening of her new show titled Color Misbehavior at Cheim & Read.

Apart from the photograph who seemed to have a crush on my dress, I immersed myself in the exhibit as if all alone in this crowded room. Then I saw her and her sight blew all the preconceived visions my imagination had played with.

She is down to earth, sunny, and cheeky. We talked or a while, well mostly me gushing over how much I loved her work. So when I recover from my crush, I hope to visit her studio and try having a conversation worth reporting!

If you are in New York, I urge you to go see her work. For the rest of you, you’ll have to content yourself by pre-ordering her monograph by Maura Reilly, published by Gregory R. Miller & Co and available on Amazon.

“Her prints, drawings, and sculptures question cliché roles imposed on women; her garden projects connect embroidery and gardening as specifically “feminine” activities; and her recent installations address the current tumultuous political climate. Despite the differences between her Islamic upbringing and Western models of behavior, Amer’s work addresses universal problems, such as the oppression of women, which are prevalent in all cultures. The submission of women to the tyranny of domestic life, the celebration of female sexuality and pleasure, the incomprehensibility of love, the foolishness of war and violence, and an overall quest for formal beauty, constitute the territory that she explores and expresses in her art.” Dexinger