A headscarf is often associated today with the head coverings worn by Muslim women. But an exhibition at Vienna's Weltmuseum shows the many — and sometimes contradictory — meanings the headscarf has embodied over time.
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'Veiled, Unveiled: The headscarf' uncovers head coverings
Through historic photos, haute couture designs, videos, drawings and more, an exhibition at Vienna's Weltmuseum focuses on the headscarf and its many meanings across history, religion and geography.
Uncovering head coverings
In much of the Western world today, the word headscarf is often automatically associated with those worn by women for religious reasons, especially Muslim women. Yet the idea and practice of covering one's head with cloth transcends religious, cultural and geographic categories. The show "Veiled, Unveiled! The Headscarf" at Vienna's Weltmuseum (World Museum) puts headscarf diversity on display.
The headscarf in Christianity
In Christianity the veil is seen as a sign of virginity and modesty. On the left, a 2008 painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint, shows the Virgin Mary wearing a starry blue veil. The Bible considers women's hair immoral and calls on them to cover it when praying — though some wear head coverings at all times. Right, a photograph of a Christian woman taken in Turkey in 1886.
Scarves for women and men
The Weltmuseum's exhibition includes not only artwork in which the headscarf figures, but also various headscarves themselves from around the world. And it's not just women's headscarves being shown; men's are on display, too. Left is a Tunisian bridal veil from the mid-20th century, while the headscarf on the right with a double eagle design is for male members of a religious order in Guatemala.
Desert coverings for men
This photograph taken by the Viennese photographer Ludwig Gustav Alois Zöhrer shows a Tuareg man wearing the traditional face coverings of the North African nomadic pastoralists. The scarf, often indigo, is believed to keep away evil spirits. It is an important rite of passage into manhood when an adolescent male begins to wear it. Women, in contrast, do not usually cover their faces.
Image: KHM-Museumsverband
A personal undressing
The various coverings worn by some Muslim women are often debated. Nilbar Güres tackles the theme in her 6-minute-long video "Soyunma/Undressing" (2006). In it, she unwraps layers of headscarves given to her by personally significant women, whose names she calls out. It is an autobiographical act that emphasizes how Muslim women, veiled or not, "foremost represent their individual selves."
Image: Courtesy Galerie Martin Janda, Wien
Abstracted depictions
The Vienna exhibition also includes items that examine head coverings in an abstracted manner. This silver gelatin print by Austrian photographer Tina Lechner, entitled "Xiao," recalls the back of a woman's head covered by crinkly fabric that drapes down. Lechner is known for her sculptural-based photography that often examines cultural constructions of femininity in a quasi-surreal manner.
Image: Courtesy Galerie Hubert Winter, Wien
Suzanne Jongmans' old-new veil
At first glance, Jongmans' photo "Mind over Matter — Julie, Portrait of a Lady" could be mistaken for von der Weyden's mid-15th century Dutch masterpiece "Portrait of a Lady." But look closely: The sitter's veil is made of packing materials, her ring is a can lid, and her bodice is held closed by a single sewing pin. Jongmans' use of recycled materials reflects on how we gauge value and beauty.
Image: Courtesy Galerie Wilms
From conservatism to emancipation
In pre-WWII authoritarian Austria, a woman wearing a headscarf with the traditional Dirndl dress was seen as rooted, practical and patriotically conservative. By the 1950s, however, the headscarf had transformed into a luxury item. Often made of silk and featuring prints, it embodied female elegance and emancipation. Above, the 1st-prize entry for a 1964 fashion competition features a headscarf.
Image: Modeschule der Stadt Wien im Schloss Hetzendorf
Haute couture coverings
Since 2003 Austrian designer Susanne Bisovsky has been known for her "Viennese Chic" collections: billowing lace and floral-filled creations drawing heavily on historic Austrian fashion and designed for the modern Viennese lady. Her 2018 collection (above) was designed especially for the Weltmuseum's show and features impressive headpieces. "Veiled, Unveiled" runs until February 26, 2019.
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It's a piece of fabric that is laden with meaning: the headscarf. And over its 4,000-year-old history spanning the globe, it has taken on, lost and represented meanings that are as diverse — and sometimes even as contradictory — as the manifestations of the head-covering cloth itself.
Starting Thursday, a special exhibition titled "Veiled, Unveiled! The Headscarf" at Vienna's Weltmuseum (World Museum) hopes to broaden perspectives on the piece of fabric.
Photographs, drawings, videos and high fashion designs are just some of the items that make up the show's 17 independent positions on the headscarf.
An idea born of current events
While the exhibition covers millennia, it was a series of social and political events last October that triggered the idea for the show, curator Axel Steinmann told DW. He highlighted a pharmacy's advertisement featuring a woman with a headscarf, the introduction of hijab-wearing emojis, and Saudi Arabia's decision to grant citizenship to a "female" robot that — unlike the country's female inhabitants — must not cover its head in public.
In this context, Steinmann said, it is important to realize that the headscarf has been influenced by its political and moral surroundings throughout history, both in the East and in the West.
"The goal of the exhibition is to reveal the transformations that the headscarf has undergone and that have been forgotten, repressed or those that are simply unknown," Steinmann said.
The exhibition's photographs alone show everything from traditional Christian veils to elaborate haute couture head coverings to abstracted head wraps. And while one drawing shows a wide-eyed young woman in a prize-winning stylish summer outfit complete with knotted headscarf, another sketch from Tehran depicts a fully-veiled woman, her face hidden, turning out a slim ankle in high heels. Overlaps and contrasts abound across the exhibition's items.
Today, the headscarf is often at the center of polemical debates in the Western world that focus on the various head coverings worn by some Muslim women. Yet the practice of covering one's head has been an integral part of all Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — and its roots go back even thousands more years to ancient Mesopotamian civilizations.
The exhibition doesn't present the headscarf as a clothing object that is always one of choice, and it doesn't shy away from contemporary controversies over head coverings in Islam, acknowledging in its description that "some Muslim girls and young women are forced to veil themselves" in public.
The show also acknowledges the fact that in general, a headscarf "far too often … still represents a man's word on a woman's body." Yet curator Steinmann highlighted that a headscarf cannot only be seen as a religious expression of female subordination to men.
By placing these perspectives side-by-side with those where the headscarf is a sign of Christian piousness or female emancipation or even high style, "Veiled and Unveiled" shows how head coverings are anything but the exclusive domain of one religion or culture or worldview.
Headscarves: The universal accessory?
The Weltmuseum's show includes exhibits from North Africa, Southwest and Central Asia, Guatemala and Indonesia, though Steinmann points out that even this geographic range can't comprehensively capture the headscarf as a topic.
The exhibition also highlights headscarves worn by men. "For me, it was important to show that head coverings for men (turbans, yarmulkes, etc.) were also determined by historic and cultural-religious aspects in combination with rules of dress."
As is the case for women, religious prescriptions sometimes call on men to cover their head before God, such as in the Talmud, a central text in Judaism. But men also donned head coverings as fashion statements. The 18th-century trend of men posing for portraits with turbans was "a transcultural masquerade of staged masculinity," Steinmann said.
The exhibition's crisscrossing across gender, geography and era raises the question: Are headscarves a universal accessory then? The answer is not that straight-forward, Steinmann said.
"But the head, just like the body, has been decorated or covered in all cultures throughout all time."
Yarmulke, mitra or veil: religious head coverings across the globe
Followers of various religions wear special head coverings to express their faith and show humility and dignity. Yarmulkes, mitras, veils and turbans are made of a great variety of materials.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Dyck
Yarmulke
European Jews started wearing the yarmulke, or kippa, in the 17th and 18th centuries, turning the skullcap into a religious symbol. Pious Jews are expected to cover their heads, but the fabric isn't that important, and a hat or scarf is acceptable, too. Jewish Halacha law requires men and boys to cover their head when they pray, visit a synagogue or a Jewish cemetery or study the religion.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/W. Rothermel
Miter
The miter is the ceremonial headdress worn by bishops, mainly in the Roman-Catholic Church. It goes back to the 11th century, with the tall, peaked hat deeply cleft on the sides and adorned with two ribbons at the back symbolizing the Old and the New Testaments.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/P. Seeger
Dastar
Members of the Sikh faith, a monotheistic religion founded in India's northern Punjab region in the 15th century, wear a dastar. A dastar is usually worn by men, with orange being a popular color. Underneath the cloth headwear, which is re-knotted every morning, Sikh men let their hair grow freely.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Dyck
Chador
In Farsi, the word chador means "tent," and that is what this garment worn by observant Muslim women in some parts of the Middle East resembles. Usually black, it covers a woman from the head down, hiding the shape of the body, revealing only the face. The chador is worn over a woman's regular clothing.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M.Kappeler
Nun's veil
Nuns almost always wear a distinctive veil to complete their religious garment, the habit. Novices' veils are white, while professed nuns usually wear a black veil, or one in their habit's color. Depending on the religious order, veils come in different sizes and shapes. Some are elaborate and cover the woman's entire head; others are simply pinned to the sister's hair.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U. Baumgarten
Headscarf
Is a woman's headscarf a religious headdress, or a symbol of oppression? In the West in particular, that continues to be a matter of heated debate. It is certainly the most well-known female head covering. Turkish women (as in this photo) tie headscarves differently from women in Arabic countries.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Schiffmann
Sheitel
The ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community in New York has strict rules for married women, who are required to shave their hair and wear a wig, the "sheitel." In her 2012 bestseller memoir "Unorthodox," US author Deborah Feldman describes growing up in the ultra-religious group.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot/Y. Dongxun
Birett
A bit of cloth, strips of cardboard and a tassel — voila, the birett, a head covering worn by Roman Catholic priests since the 13th century. In the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and France, the hat has four corners. In many other countries, it has three.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Ebener
Birett
A bit of cloth, strips of cardboard and a tassle — voila, the birett, a head covering worn by Roman Catholic priests since the 13th century. In the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and France, the hat has four corners. In many other countries, it has three. If you remember the character Don Camillo (played by French actor Fernandel in a series of films in the 1950s and '60s), you know the hat!
Image: Picture-alliance/akg-images
Tagelmust
The cotton scarf that can be up to 15 meters long is worn by Tuareg Berber Muslim men throughout western Africa. The tagelmust covers the head and is pulled over the mouth and nose against wind-born sand in the desert. The turban-style headdress is worn by adult men only. When indigo blue, the tagelmust's dye can rub off on the skin, hence the Tuareg being called the "blue men of the desert."
The Jewish shtreimel hat is made of velvet and has a wide fur trim, usually sable. Married men wear the hat on Jewish holidays and for religious festivities. The eye-catching headgear originated in Hasidic communities in southeastern Europe, a tradition that became nearly extinct in Europe after the Holocaust.
Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto
Hats and bonnets
The Amish are a conservative Christian group in North America that originated in the tradition of the Anabaptist movement in Switzerland and southern Germany. The first Amish fled to the US in the early 18th century to escape religious persecution. They live simple lives, and shun modern technology and conveniences. The women wear plain bonnets; the men wear straw or felt hats.