If you ask someone to name five artists, they will likely name prominent male artists, but how many people can list five women artists? Throughout Marchâs Womenâs History Month, we will be joining institutions around the world to answer this very question posed by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NWMA). We will be featuring a woman artist every day this month, and highlighting artists in our current exhibition Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection which explores a wide range of art-making, focusing on enduring political subjectsâencompassing gender, race, and classâthat remain relevant today. The show is on view until March 31, 2019.
Together we hope to draw attention to the gender and race imbalance in the art world, inspire conversation and awareness, and hopefully add a few more women to everyoneâs lists.
Ghada Amerâs choice of thread as a medium is a nod to the devaluation of sewing as âwomenâs work,â as well as to the modern perception that âcraft,â as the production of those who labor for a living, has less intrinsic value than âfineâ art. In textiles, dĂ©gradĂ© refers to the diminution of a fabricâs color when a dye fades from dark to light. In Heatherâs DĂ©gradĂ©, Amer depicts women who seem to be in a state of dĂ©gradĂ©, the outlines of their bodies, in explicit poses often culled from pornography, almost dissolving into overlapping forms that appear at a distance as an abstraction. Her choice of words is also a play on womenâs âdegradationâ by the act of sexâtraditionally thought to downgrade the social value of womenâhere depicted with pleasure and sensuousness.
Ghada Amer (American, born Egypt, 1963). Heatherâs DĂ©gradĂ©, 2006. Embroidery and gel medium on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Frank L. Babbott Fund, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, William K. Jacobs, Jr. Fund, and Florence B. and Carl L. Selden Fund, 2013.50.1. © artist or artistâs estateÂ
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