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For more information, please contact Adam Kubota at 860-685-2806
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Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery Presents
Hagit Molgan: Not Prepared
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Examining the role of religion in shaping gender roles and Social Hierarchy
Hagit Molgan: Not Prepared
Ezra and Cecile Gallery, Wesleyan University
283 Washington Terrace
January 28–March 5, 2006
(Middletown, Conn., December 7, 2005)—Nina Felshin, curator of Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, is pleased to announce its new exhibition Hagit Molgan:Not Prepared (from the Hebrew Ani Lo Mukhanah) on view in Zilkha’s South Gallery from Saturday, January 28 through Sunday, March 5, 2006. The public is invited to attend the opening reception on Friday, January 27th from 5–7pm. The Zilkha Gallery is located within the Center for the Arts at 283 Washington Terrace.
A talk by Hagit Molgan and exhibition curator Nina Felshin, held in conjunction with the conference, “Women, Bodies, and Rituals,” is scheduled for Sunday, January 29th at 2 pm in Zilkha’s South Gallery. A complete conference schedule is listed below.
Not Prepared (from the Hebrew Ani Lo Mukhanah) by Israeli artist Hagit Molgan explores the role of religion and rituals in shaping social values and promoting unequal gender relations in Judaism. The artist explores these ideas through the lens of niddah, the ritual laws concerning menstruation which mandate total physical separation of a married couple during menstruation and for an additional seven days afterward. What, she asks, are the implications of these laws—written by male rabbis about women's bodies—for observant Jewish women and Jewish families? The exhibition includes work that incorporates objects associated with niddah such as bedikah (examination) cloths, as well as a projected videotape that documents related performances by the artist.
Molgan is one of the new voices of observant religious women who tackle the issue of the niddah and their centrality in the lives of religious Jewish families. Through her art she asks: What is the role ofrituals in shaping social order and social hierarchy? What do rituals say about gender roles within society? What is the position of women in Jewish society and in the Jewish family? These are some of the major questions that orthodox Jewish society faces today, and they are tied to the broader dilemmas of modernity that Jewish communities have faced since the nineteenth-century.
Hagit Molgan is part of a long tradition of visual artists such as Mary Kelly and Judy Chicago, performance artists such as Eve Ensler and Karen Finley and scholars such as Julia Kristeva andGermaine Greer, whose work explores the role menstruation plays in cultural constructs of “the feminine.”
In conjunction with the exhibition, the conference "Women, Bodies, and Rituals" is being held to situate Hagit Molgan's art in a broader social, cultural and religious context. Four scholars have been invited topresent different perspectives on the role of purity, menstruation and rituals in gender constructions in various cultures. The conference will be held in the Russell House at Wesleyan University onSunday, January 29 from 10am to 5:30pm.
The conference schedule is as follows:
10:15-11:15am
Edward Fram, Ben-Gurion University, Israel: What ever happened to men's ritual purity?
Of all the purity laws that existed during the Temple period, only the laws of ritual purity regarding women still remain in Judaism. The talk by Edward Fram will outline Jewish laws relating to menstruation and post partum bleeding and their origins as well as other forms of ritual purity that existed during the Temple period. Edward Fram will try to explain why it was only women's purity laws that survived.
11:30am-12:30pm
Peggy McCracken, University of Michigan: The Curse of Eve: Purity, Danger, and Women's Blood in Medieval Europe?
This talk will address Christian views of menstruation in the Middle Ages, such as postpartum purification rituals, which provided a space for female friendships. However, blood was also acontested topic; in Jewish-Christian polemics, women's blood was often a point of religious argument.
2-2:45 pm
Gallery Talk with Hagit Mogan in the Zilkha Gallery
2:45-3:15pm
Gallery Talk with Nina Felshin, curator of the Zilkha Gallery
3:30-4:30pm
Rahel Wasserfall, Brandeis University: Jewish Women and Mikveh/Niddah: A quest for Identity?
Mikveh is a central commandment for Jewish women. In this talk, Rahel Wassefall will explore Mikveh's meanings in different settings, mainly in Israel. In unpacking its meaning for Jewish women, the speaker will ask questions of identity, power and the importance of ritual for contemporary Jewishwomen.
4:15-5:15pm
Alma Gottlieb, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: From Pollution to Bloody Magic: New Perspectives in the Anthropology of Menstruation
In this talk, cultural anthropologist Alma Gottlieb takes a global perspective on menstrualpractices. Starting from the premise that no matter what it means in a given community and to a given woman, menstruation always means something, she explores the many meanings that menstrual practices, stories and taboos hold in a variety of societies around the globe, from New Guinea to New York.
For complete details of the conference, please visit: http://mteter.web.wesleyan.edu/Molgan.htm
About the CFA
The Center for the Arts is an 11-building complex on the Wesleyan campus that houses the departments of art and art history, music, theater and dance as well as film studies events and classes. It serves as a cultural center for the region, the state and New England. The CFA includes the 400-seat Theater, the 260-seat Cinema, the World Music Hall (a non-Western performance space), the414-seat Crowell Concert Hall and the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.
Admission to Hagit Molgan: Not Prepared is free and open to the public. Gallery Hours are 12-4pm Tuesday-Sunday. For more information or directions, call 860-685-3355 or visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.
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