• Sonntag, 04. September 2016, 19:30
• Veranstaltungsort: Cell63 Artgallery
• Sparte: Community Arts

This time we invited 5 artists, 5 incredible women, to exhibit artworks inspired by the shakespearian character Ophelia, as icon of women tormented by society, religion, family and expectation on what feminine should be.
Shakespeare’s Ophelia is not lacking in attention. As one of Shakespeare’s most popular female characters she has enjoyed many appellations from the bard. “Fair Ophelia.” “Most beautifed Ophelia.” “Pretty Ophelia.” “Sweet Ophelia.” “Dear Ophelia.” “Beautiful Ophelia…sweet maid…poor wretch.” “Poor Ophelia.”‘
All of these names for Ophelia can be found in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
Since Shakespeare’s incarnation of Ophelia many have felt the need to offer their opinions of Ophelia as a character.
“Poor wispy Ophelia.” “Devastated and emotionally exhausted Ophelia.” “Pensive, fair-haired, blue-eyed daughter of the north.” “Ophelia the young, the beauteous, the harmless, the pious.”
“Clumsy Ophelia…open-hearted but light-brained…incapable either of understanding or of curing.” “A weak creature, wanting in truthfulness, in purpose, in force of character, and only interesting when she loses the little wits she had.”
These are only a few of the hundreds.
For a character that only appears in five of the 20 scenes in Hamlet, Ophelia has garnered a great deal of attention from analysts, critics, artists, actresses, fiction writers, psychologists, and adolescent girls alike.
Readers are consistently struck by her character that seems relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Ophelia is many times viewed as only important in relation to Hamlet and the effect she has on him. Ophelia is not just important in this respect, but also in respect to what she tells us about the society she came out of and the society we live in today.
First analysing Shakespeare and his precursors then concentrating on the modern day prominence of Ophelia with an overview of feminist criticism and current applications of her story will show that Ophelia is indeed a character with many faces, both positive and negative.
Ophelia is one of the most interpreted and represented characters of Shakespeare. She garners constant attention from critics and re-visionists as well as people who identify with her just as Shakespeare wrote her.
Depending on who directs the play or the movie, the interpretation will be different. Depending on the artist, the rendering may have a positive connotation or a negative connotation.
Ophelia may have been a relatively one-dimensional character, but she has certainly become much more than a girl suffering.
The sheer number of different interpretations of Ophelia show that she is still very much alive in our culture.
The fact that so many people do have knowledge of Ophelia is a testament to her immortality.
From a nameless maiden, to a pair of erect nipples on canvas, Ophelia has transversed time in a way few characters have.

Weitere Infos: www.cell63.com