La Grande Odalisque (Primary Title)
Les Femmes du Maroc (Series Title)
Lalla Essaydi, Moroccan, born 1956 (Artist)
“In my art I wish to present myself through multiple lenses—as artist, as Moroccan, as Saudi, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite the viewer to resist stereotypes.” —Lalla Essaydi
Lalla Essaydi’s photography explores the complexity of female identity in the Islamic world, especially the issue of veiling and revealing that surrounds Arab women. The women in her series Les Femmes du Maroc are enveloped in Islamic calligraphy, a traditionally male art, written—on their skin, robes, and surrounding interiors—in the traditionally female art form of henna. The text at once entraps her subjects and signals their agency. Essaydi’s art is also a response to Western Orientalism and here, particularly, to one of its defining images, Ingres’s Grande Odalisque. Through her re-authorship, Essaydi draws attention both to the Western male sexual fantasies informing Orientalism and to the ways in which Arabs’ views of themselves have been distorted by its voyeuristic lens.
A Conversation with Lalla Essaydi
7:39Interview with artist Lalla Essaydi conducted in November 2017 discussing her practice, career and the work, La Grande Odalisque, featured in the permanent collection of VMFA.
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