{"id":1640,"date":"2010-11-08T18:09:48","date_gmt":"2010-11-08T23:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/h\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2011-02-28T15:54:04","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T20:54:04","slug":"elena-fajt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gallerymc.org\/h\/elena-fajt\/","title":{"rendered":"Elena Fajt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Punishment Without a Crime<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Gallery MC, New York<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

November 15 \u2013 November 30
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\u201cPunishment without a crime,\u201d a critique of misogyny and social values, takes as its point of departure the concrete historical event that took place immediately after the liberation \u00a0\u2013 the punishment of several tens of thousands of women by cutting their hair. These were women who socialized or flirted with the occupying soldiers, which was considered a sufficient reason for their public humiliation and punishment. Viewed in this light, hair-cutting appears as a form of social castration of women.<\/p>\n

Taking photographic evidence as an aesthetic starting point and drawing on patriarchal violence against innocent women, the author problematizes and transcends historical traumas, cultural constraints and ideological controversies. Hair as a symbol of femininity is shifted from women\u2019s bald heads to their bodies and dresses; the disgraced heads bear haircuts of \u201cdecent\u201d women; their public exposure and shame are overlaid with cult fashion items dating from 1945 and later, filling metaphorically what was forcibly taken away from them.\u00a0 In \u201cPunishment without a crime\u201d all these unfortunate women have finally regained their hair, their dresses, their beauty and pride.<\/p>\n

Elena Fajt is a visual artist and a costume designer.\u00a0From 2000 she’s been working\u00a0\u00a0on her ongoing project Hairsense. In this project \u2013 with series of installations, sculptures, object, hair-dresses and public projects \u2013 she is exploring aesthetic, symbolic and cultural meanings of human hair.\u00a0She also\u00a0\u00a0has used hair as a way of opening and entering issues linked social, political and cultural contexts. Fajt has exhibited her work nationally\u00a0and\u00a0\u00a0internationally (USA, Germany, Italy, Croatia).\u00a0She made more than forty costume designs for theater and dance performances staged at home and abroad and for movies. She works as an Assistant Professor at the University of Ljubljana.<\/p>\n\n

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