Untitled, 1976, photography: Micha Bar-Am, documentary b/w photographs of a performance, Davel Gallery, Jerusalem
Yocheved Weinfeld
Yocheved Weinfeld's actios in the performance Untitled (1976), were based on the ritual purification ceremony dictated to brides by Jewish law. Weinfeld created a disturbing and somber ritual, in which humiliating actions are performed upon the body of a passive woman. These actions were accompanied by a reading of texts from Kitzur Shulchan Aruch - a classic compendium of Jewish Law - concerning mourning rituals, modesty and the impure status of women during menstruation. Weinfeld related these laws concerning the body and sexuality of women to death and mourning - an affinity that underscores the symbolic death of women within a demeaning cultural construction.
