Diana al-Hadid, My New Favourite Artist?
With all the feminist art reading I’ve been doing over the festive break, I’ve discovered Diana al-Hadid, a Syrian-born American contemporary artist. She lives in New York and is represented by the Kasmin Gallery. She uses an array of industrial materials: polymer gypsum, fibreglass, wood, foam, plaster, bronze, and pigment to create large-scale sculptures and mixed-media drawings and paintings.
Considering the proliferation of exhibitions Al-Hadid has had, it’s astounding and inspiring to see the highly successful 43-year-old artist. Her work is partially inspired by the female tropes of myths and folklore from both Western and Arabic cultures, architecture, various artists, including Cy Twombly, Salvador Dali, and Jackson Pollock, and various art history periods, including Classical Greek and Roman sculptures, Renaissance painting, abstract expressionism and surrealism.
It’s so different from my work, but I find Al-Hadid inspiring, not only due to her age and success but also because her work is so well-researched. She admits to continually grazing, always reading or listening to something to broaden her perspective. Her sources range from social and political to art and architecture. This is obvious from the ambiguous interpretation of her work and the many layers of art history that her work references.
My favourite piece, ‘Suspended After Image’ 2012, was first shown at The University of Texas, Visual Arts Center’s Vaulted Gallery. Fragments of figure and architecture collide, and the possibly post-op female-to-male figure in repose morphs in the steps of the sculpture. The conception and execution are phenomenal, likely aided by her ideas being planned digitally using Photoshop.
Suspended After Image
Photo: Robert Boland. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York.
Another favourite of mine is ‘Citadel’ 2017-2018. A bronze sculpture that stands over 4 meters high of a hollowed female silhouette whose face is vacant of features. For me, it has both bridal and arachnid connotations, suggestive of the power of women, which is amplified by its size. It was inspired by the oil painting ‘Allegory of Chastity’ by Hans Memling, which seems to oppose my reading of the sculpture. A painting of the female archetype of purity and desire. Was it Al-Hadid’s intention to portray the contradictions of female power still touted in modern society?
Citadel
Photo: Cameron Blaylock. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York.
‘Double Standard’ 2022, exhibited at Kasmin Gallery, New York in 2023, in a solo exhibition titled ‘Women, Bronze, and Dangerous Things’. The bronze drips create an inversion of reclining females, adjoining at the neck, so neither silhouette has a head. The symmetrical composition suggests the yin-yang concepts of balancing the opposites as the interplay of harmony and the lack of head suggestive of our unknown true identity as females.
Double Standard
Photo: Kasmin, New York
I love how Al-Hadid’s sculptures take the classical female nude, deconstruct it, and, with it, deconstruct the societal concept of the idealised female form. She claims back the female body and the feminine quality of strength in vulnerability and fragility. I love what I’ve seen of her work through various books, online articles and various websites. Still, my ambition is to visit America to see a solo show, as there isn’t anything quite like the impact of the actual experience of an artist’s work. Maybe I’ll be fortunate enough to see ‘unbecoming’ later in 2025 at The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University; it never hurts to dream.
References:
Allison, Maya. Diana al-Hadid: Phantom Limb. Skira Editore S.p.A. 2016.
Battista, Kathy. New York New Wave: The Legacy of Feminist Art in Emerging Practices. I.B. Tauris, 2015.
https://canvasonline.com/where-myth-meets-metal-diana-al-hadid-at-kasmin-gallery/
http://www.dianaalhadid.com/work/citadel
http://www.dianaalhadid.com/work/double-standard
http://www.dianaalhadid.com/work/suspended-after-image
https://www.kasmingallery.com/artists/30-diana-al-hadid/
https://www.kasmingallery.com/news/252-diana-al-hadid-unbecoming-msu-broad-art-museum/