Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Art Exhibit Review on Clothing

Wearing art on our shirtsleeves
by Maxwell Price, September 19, 2008, in "The Hoot" - Brandeis University's Community Newspaper, Massachusetts

The exhibit is almost over, for those of you near Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Here is part of the review:

The art exhibit, Dress · Redress, at the Women’s Studies Research Center just gave the Brandeis community another reason to ponder those issues. The exhibition, on display from June 19-September 25th, examines how the clothing intersects with identity through the crosscutting lenses of gender, religion, culture, family, and trauma. The show was curated by Lisa Lynch and features a diverse array of contemporary artists from around the country.

On Thursday the Center hosted a panel discussion in conjunction with the exhibit entitled, “(Un)Dressing Religion, Culture & Identity.” This panel featured Lisa Fishbayne, director of the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law at the Haddasah-Brandeis Institute; . . .

Fishbayne discussed the Jewish tradition of female head-covering and its tensions in American society. She ultimately concluded that women have multifarious reasons for carrying out these rituals that society buries beneath oversimplified labels such as state repression and religious law.

No comments: