ABSTRACT
Hair rites and wrongs: tonsorial acts in the work of female artists by Shir Aloni Yaari. An examination of the performative, evocative, and often subversive ways in which female artists employ hair imagery to contest traditional iconographies of femininity. Expounding on the messages intimated by Frida Kahlo in her iconic Self Portrait, contemporary artists have further dealt with the private and public meanings of hair-cutting as well as with head/body (hair) ‘dualism’ in an effort to alter restrictive patriarchal protocols of appearance and representation and assert their own personal narratives and embodied particularities. Their art, produced with respect (and often defiant dis-respect) to different religious and political contexts, offers a challenging re-examination of the shame and glory of hair.
