WonderWOMEN of the month: the artists and curators of ‘In Her Footsteps’ (January)

The newest female-centric exhibition at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art is such a great example of ‘girl power’ at its finest, that we decided the women involved deserved the January title: ‘Wonderwomen of the month’. Through careful research and female strength, the creators of ‘In Her Footsteps’ (artists and curators) walk in the footsteps of women from diverse times and places – whether fictional or nonfictional.

 

Here’s a glance at four of the eight women who ‘create, act, love, despair, search relentlessly, inflict and sustain hurt; women who endeavor to tell their personal stories and convey their ideas, to pave their way despite the difficulties due to their gender’.

 

 

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Michal Heiman found her artistic inspiration after coming across a photograph of a woman in a psychiatric ward (circa 1855) that bore a striking resemblance to her own adolescent self. Through a multi-media venture of installations, performance, sound, video, floor work and so much more, her exhibit seeks to envision the political, cultural, gendered and psychic conditions attached to this possibility of ‘return’. Heiman strives to create a new community of asylum-seekers, activists and artists that spans from 1855 to the present day.

 

 

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In her latest series of tributes to veteran Israeli artists, Hilla Ben Ari converses with choreographer Head Oren (1935-2008). On top of a video installation, which includes images of dancers as they hold postures inspired by the late choreographer, ‘Rethinking Broken Lines’ displays sketches, photographs and pages from Oren’s diary that allow a window into the mind of the choreographer and her successful forty-year career.

 

 

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The tragic death of Talia Sidi at the ripe age of 35 shortened her artistic career to a total of ten years. Nonetheless, in that time, she created monumental masterpieces that reveal raw emotions and an artistic language that cannot be replicated. To pay homage to Sidi on the ten-year anniversary of her death, five of her works will be displayed in the entrance hall of the Museum.

 

 

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Ronit Porat tells a psychologically dense story in her exhibition: the tale of a sixteen-year-old girl (Lieschen Neumann) sentenced to jail after murdering a pedophilic watchmaker who photographed young girls (including herself) in Berlin in 1931. Her narrative exams important binaries – man vs. woman, victimizer vs. victimize and photographer vs. model – as the Neumann regains the agency that was once stripped from her.