Les Femmes du Maroc: Grande Odalisque

Details

Lalla Essaydi (Moroccan, b. 1956)
Les Femmes du Maroc: Grande Odalisque
signed 'Lalla Essaydi' (on a label affixed to the reverse)
chromogenic print mounted on aluminium
48 x 57 7/8in. (122 x 147cm.)
Executed in 2008, this work is number three from an edition of ten

Provenance

Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature

Art+Auction, Russian Edition, March-April 2009 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, on the front cover).
M. M. Katz, "Letters of Intent" in Canvas, vol. 6, issue 4, 2010 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p. 97).
R. Issa & M. Krifa (eds.), Arab Photography Now, Berlin 2011 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p. 119).

Exhibited

New Brunswick, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc, 2010 (another from the edition exhibited).
Zurich, Edwynn Houk Gallery, Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc, 2011 (another from the edition exhibited).
Chattanooga, Hunter Museum of American Art, 1960s to Today: Contemporary Art and Studio Glass, 2011 (another from the edition exhibited).
Atlanta, Jackson Fine Art Gallery, Lalla Essaydi, 2011-2012 (another from the edition exhibited).
Baku, Museum of Modern Art, Lalla Essaydi: Beyond Time and Beauty, 2013-2014 (another from the edition exhibited).

Special notice

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Lot Essay

'I am not 'reproducing' the 'exotic' and 'mysterious' depictions of Arab women from Orientalist harem art. I am deconstructing these paintings by using the same stereotypes one finds in these paintings.
My work reaches beyond Islamic culture to include the Western fascination, which we see so powerfully in painting, with the odalisque, the veil and the harem. It's obvious to anyone who cares to look that images of the harem and odalisque are still pervasive today, and I am using the female body to complicate assumptions and disrupt the Orientalist gaze.'
(L. Essaydi in S. Errazzouki, "Artistic Depictions of Arab Women: An Interview with Artist Lalla Essadi", in Jadaliyya, 16 May 2012).

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