Guided tour of the exhibition JEWESS

The Invisible Dog and La MaMa Galleria are pleased to present JEWESS, a new solo exhibition featuring the costume / character work of Danielle Durchslag, and the artist’s most ambitious project to-date. JEWESS explores three powerful characters, all created by Durchslag, visually inspired by 1960’s glamour, Tudor court dressing, and early London punk. These personas meet at the crossroads of Jewish ritual, politics, and fashion.

Informed by clothing history and Jewish observance, Durchslag designs, makes, and wears intricate costumes and hats, to portray female characters of her invention with distinct, oppositional approaches to Jewish identity.

Each of the three characters on display in JEWESS is tethered to both a specific Jewish holiday and a set of political values. The fashion movements influencing Durchslag’s creations include 16th century Elizabethan Court attire, early London punk, and 1960’s American glamour.

The exhibition includes large-scale photographs of Durchslag posing as each character, videos of her performing as these personas, and life-sized, fully costumed mannequins of all three figures, physically positioned to reflect their personalities and dynamics with one another. Her characters represent right-wing, leftist, and “non-political” approaches to both Jewishness and Zionism. Collectively, this female trinity forms a portrait of some of the most meaningful divisions and tensions present, amongst and between Ashkenazi Jews, in post-World War II life, but from a feminist place of joy and play.

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Host or Publisher The Invisible Dog Art Center & the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)