Contemporary Curated

Contemporary Curated

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 49. Broken Weddings in Beir Al Sabe.

Lot Closed

November 24, 02:45 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Amer Shomali

b. 1981

Broken Weddings in Beir Al Sabe


2301 DMC spools mounted on aluminium laid on wood, in 4 parts 

each: 110 by 110 by 3.7 cm. 43⅜ by 43⅜ by 1½ in.

overall: 220.8 by 220.8 by 3.7 cm. 87 by 87 by 1½in.

Executed in 2019. 

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in 2019
Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, gohyang: home, November 2019 - March 2020

This famous, six-word story, written by Ernest Hemingway, came to mind when Amer Shomali was faced with a wedding dress exhibited at an Israeli auction in 2017. Legend has it that Hemingway won a ten-dollar bet, crafting this novel in just six words and moving his fellow writers to tears. As Shomali looked upon this ornately embroidered thobe, he couldn’t help but be moved by it’s untouched state and question why such a piece would go unused. Capturing details of abandoned dresses, such as the one he came across at the Israeli auction, Shomali set out to create a series of reconstructions, to give them a second life.


Shomali, a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist, is not bound by any medium. Painting, films, digital media, installations, the artist is constantly experimenting with new ways to explore and interact with the sociopolitical scene in Palestine. Broken Weddings in Beir Al Sabe, is an impressive example of Shomali’s wedding dress reconstructions. Composed of 2304 individual spools across 4 panels, Shomali replaces each stitch of patterns from the original dress with hues of coloured yarn. The result is a kaleidoscopic vision of colour, transforming the patterns of the unused dress into monumental installation. Each spool of yarn, every one of them untouched and unused, echo the abandonment of the source dress. The present work was featured in Gohyang:Home at the Seoul Museum of Art, an exhibition introducing key artists from the Middle East to South Korea. Such recognition asserts Shomali as an emerging international talent; his reconstructions of wedding dresses embody a sense of loss that can be felt on a universal level.