Art Knowledge News
Photographs by Lalla Essaydi on View at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum |
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| Written by Rochel Bannister |
| Tuesday, 02 February 2010 02:35 |
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 Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc comprises 17
large scale photographs selected from the artist’s most recent series. The title
of the series, Les Femmes du Maroc,is adapted from Eugene Delacroix’s iconic
painting, Les Femmes d’Algiers of 1834. The painting by Delacroix, while based
on his actual travels in North Africa, is a fictive vision of languorous women
in an opulent harem. Paintings like these, which coincided with the
nineteenth-century European occupation of much of the Arab world, fostered a
view of the Middle East as a sensual paradise of sexually available women, rich
colors and exotic tastes. Essaydi takes these Orientalist paintings of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century as a point of departure for her own
de-colonializing enterprise. She drains the paintings of color, removes all male figures, drapes the women and all surfaces in white fabric, and sets everything within a shallow stage-like space. All visible surface -- backdrops, floor, drapery, skin -- are inscribed with Arabic calligraphy. These texts are subversive on several levels. In Islamic cultures calligraphy is a male art form, used primarily to transcribe the Q’uran and other sacred literature, however, in Essaydi’s work, the texts -- musings on personal freedom, cultural and individual identity, memory and communication taken from her personal journals -- are applied with henna, a tradition associated with women. Her transformations of the original paintings reverberate with the historical past while revealing the colonial and gendered perspectives of historic and contemporary Orientalism. Lalla Essaydis photographic portraits capture a truly feminine spirituality, solitude and purity. Her subjects are always dressed in ghost like white (White being the colour worn by Moroccan women whilst in mourning.) she photographs these women in relaxed poses reminiscent of a bye gone era, similar to the 18th century orientalist artists who were fascinated with exposing the veiled women of the Harem. Lalla Essaydis work continues to expose the mystery to the western mind that surrounds the rituals of Muslim women in the present day. This exhibition has been organized by the DeCordova Sculpture Park + Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts. Visit the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at : www.zimmerlimuseum.rutgers. Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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