Welcome to the Addison Gallery of American Art. I'm Tamara Vichai, host of the

art history podcast The Lonely Pallet and throughout this three episodes series

Your Guide to the Addison,

as we celebrate its 90th anniversary

by looking at some of the most important

and provocative objects in the museum's collection.

Join me on a thematic stroll through the galleries as we poke and probe both what these objects mean

to art history and to each other.

Today, exploring the figure. The Figure. photographer Lala Asidee writes, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses.

In short, I wish to resist stereotypes.

You've probably seen her work before.

She photographs female figures with their bodies covered in henna,

a dye that temporarily pigments the skin,

which is commonly used in ornate decorative patterning for celebratory events in India, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.

The Henna here is spelling out intricate loosely rendered Arabic text, which then extends from the

body to the rest of the image, acting like a transparent screen between the figure and

us.

And this use of text as a kind of decorative veil

is particularly resonant in one of her most famous images,

Le Femme de Meroc, the Grand Odelisk, from 2008, where she adopts the same pose and

coquettish audience-facing glance as its namesake, the famous Orientalist painting,

La Grand Odolisk,

...