AMIRA PARREE ‘And if I die?’

What would happen if we died suddenly or became fully aware of our mortality?

What would happen at that moment, transition for some but disappearance for others, to those closest to us, our family and loved ones, as well as to the work of the artist? What is the meaning of artistic creativity and its perpetuation? Do artists create with the aim of asking questions about their own or our existence or, through the creative process, do they try to confront, overcome or resolve questions of a personal or existential nature? These and other questions may spring rapidly to mind after reading the title of this project by the Egyptian artist Amira Parree (1970).

Amira Parree’s work, within the framework of a formal post-minimalism, is of great conceptual and poetic depth. For the first time in Spain, in this exhibition room at the San Antonio Abad-CAAM (the Atlantic Centre of Modern Art), she is presenting a selection of her work from over recent years using installations, objects, photography and performance.

There is always something to do with performance underlying her work, which she, the artist, still inhabits, occupying the empty interior spaces suggested by her objects/installations in order to give them life and move around the space, in an open invitation to viewers to actively immerse themselves within the work itself.

In this sense, the question posed in the title of this project, “And if I die?”, could offer a possible solution springing from the very nature of the artist’s work. Perhaps accepting the fleetingness of life is not such a serious matter, as it will be others who, by “immersing themselves in her work”, will give a meaning not only to the work itself but to existence.

Occupying the exhibition spaces of this project are two impressive installation objects, in the form of clothing in which the body can disappear and leave behind a mere suggestion of the forms within. They are devices of anonymity where we can take refuge and move freely to purify ourselves and rid ourselves of the numerous layers/skin, the result of unwanted projections that build up upon us.

The inescapable passing of time is suggested in the two wall installations, by way of contemporary vanitas, about the need to face and resolve fundamental questions before embarking on our last journey.

Amira Parree, immersed in the solitude and peace of a task which, like a mantra she has repeated over the years, weaves a text that is forged at a “controlled” pace in time, almost in slow motion, in which you can read: “Parce que tout n’a pas été dit, de mon corps”/ “Because all has not been said about my body”.

The text takes shape through the measured ritual of the intricate threading and sewing of her own hair. A resilient textile composition representing the body and pain. By weaving with her own organic matter, she challenges the durability of her existence to tell us about her primary self, which will disappear to become a memory once the initial question of this project has been answered: “And if I die?”

IMAGE GALLERIES

---