Last night, Lalla Essaydi spoke as a Falk Visiting Artist at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery on the campus of UNC Greensboro. She is a Moroccan-American artist whose portraits of Moroccan women are laboriously crafted in a way that can take up to two years to stage. She fills the walls and clothing of the scenes with Arabic calligraphy and puts henna designs on women and their garments. The Arabic writing tells the stories of the models and the artist as they sit together preparing to stage the photo. The stories are not meant to be read by the viewers, but instead are part of the experience created by the artist for her models. They are written in a way that the viewer cannot read; so in essence the stories are hidden in plain view. Ms Essaydi addresses very complicated topics like male gaze, Orientalism, and western perceptions of Muslim and Arabic women. Essaydi's models are very aware of gaze and they look back!
Ms. Essaydi combines the everyday with the elegant. In one series of clothing, she designed "cloth" out of parts of bullet casings. In her latest project, she assembled beer caps, creating beautiful clothing with an elegant traditional design. Not only do the clothing pieces take two years to make, some weigh more than 200 pounds. The Weatherspoon has modern and contemporary artwork that represents the diversity in society today. They also work hard to engage community members from all walks of life. Greensboro is lucky to have the Weatherspoon Art Museum, a space that makes possible memorable presentations like the evening with Lalla Essaydi.
Happy Friday!
Very creative ideas.
Posted by: William Kendall | Friday, April 05, 2024 at 03:17 PM