ANA KARKAR: WHOLE COOKIE

Almine Rech London presents Ana Karkar's exhibition Whole Cookie. Composed as a temple to eroticism, it explores and universalises the many complex paradoxes of Ishtar, the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of both love and war, as well as fertility and sensuality.

May 30 - July 27, 2024

Each of us reflects some of her discordance in ourselves, and this exhibition, Whole Cookie, explores how we strive to gather these conflicting parts into a semblance of order. Ishtar’s polarities and contradictions feed the creative spirit, but they also provoke insecurity and disruption.

In Karkar’s method of seeing others in the show exploring the interaction between humans and hybrid figures. Her gestural work is imbued with colour relationships, as expressed by a vibrant palette in which her bodies are twisted and blended in a dance macabre that evoke the work of Egon Schiele.

Ana Karkar’s work is influenced by cinematography and images in the collective unconscious, especially horror and erotic movies. Filmic elements are often noted in her paintings, however for this show, for the first time Karkar is exhibiting film work, in the video piece Queen of the Night in relation to her painting.

Like an altar, the film is presented as the backdrop to Karkar’s own sculpture of a goddess, subversively titled Queen of the Nightlife, under whose feet is positioned a text written by Karim Massoteau, MY ANGER, A HARROW WITH GREAT TEETH, HAS TORN THE MOUNTAIN APART, folded and marked ‘REUNIFICATION IN PROCESS’. Visitors can take a copy of this text with them as they leave the altar.

Ana Karkar, via Ishtar, is insisting we face our shadowy contradictions. That we acknowledge who we are, in all our painful and wonderful complexity. At the same time, she steps forward to do the same.