low relief
Lydia Ourahmane collects the materials needed to create her works in Algeria, then works on them in London. This process allows her to maintain a certain distance that she deems necessary to deal with her chosen subjects. The work low relief (2019) consists of a red wax cube whose centre is marked by the imprint of a stone from Mount Vesuvius. This cube is accompanied by a thermometer, the temperature of which varies according to the temperature of the exhibition space. Like many of Ourahmane’s works, low relief has a history whose traces are contained in the materials used. The sculpture evokes the emergence of bodies, an idea which took on its full meaning in the eponymous exhibition at the Bodega gallery in New York in 2019: low relief was exhibited there among sculpted human body parts that seemed to emerge from the ground.
Text written by Julie Robin as part of the partnership between the École du Louvre and Lafayette Anticipations – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin.
Exhibition
Bodega Gallery, New York (USA)
from 27 Apr to 16 Jun 2019