KEWENIG presents 'Room #10' with ‚Thoughts' by the Egyptian-born artist Ghada Amer (b. 1963, lives and works in New York City), has made a name for herself with multilayered embroidered depictions of female sexuality on canvas. Closely linked to an aesthetic language reminiscent of specific crafts traditionally associated to women, her works question established power structures and gender stereotypes. In 2014 she started working with clay and, during residencies at the Greenwich House Pottery (New York) and Cerámica Suro (Guadalajara, Mexico), has been creating an extensive body of outstanding ceramic works since then. Amer starts out with large-format thin slabs of clay, painting women’s portraits on both sides and then bending the slabs and standing them on edge.

I also molded pieces with my left hand; I called them ‘Thoughts'. They were done in parallel with the works shaped as slabs. I carved out “groves” in the clay to create the preliminary drawings on the slabs. The carved-out pieces were pressed into my left hand. When applying the drawing to the clay slab—by means of coloured porcelain coils—I then used my right hand once again. Many of the painted slabs, whether freestanding or hung on the walls, broke either as greenware, in the kiln or even before being glazed after the bisque firing. But all the ‘Thoughts’ survived.

(Ghada Amer 2018, Interview with Sebastian Preuss)

All ‘Thoughts’ and ‘Pensamientos’ presented in Room #10 were part of the artist’s solo exhibition at Dallas Contemporary in 2018. KEWENIG has published the most comprehensive catalogue on Ghada Amer’s ceramic work at DISTANZ publishers on that occasion.

The presentation is part of KEWENIG’s recent exhibition format '12 Rooms', a monthly rotating artist program in the enclosed room between the gallery and the adjacent building.