Kutlug Ataman Women Who Wear Wigs. - Review - video recording review

Kutlug Ataman's Women Who Wear Wigs (1999), a video installation featuring four women from Turkey who discuss when, where, why, and how they wear wigs, operates at the limits of documentary, fiction, and contemporary art. The installation consists of four video projections that run simultaneously for total durations of forty-five to sixty minutes. The women are real, not actresses playing fictional characters; and there are no sets, props, special lights, or dramatic editing used to create fictional mise-en-scenes. Although one could claim that Women Who Wear Wigs is a documentary, it is not a conventional television-like documentary featuring interviews with talking heads. Instead, it is one that delicately navigates the line between reality and fiction so that the viewer can never ascertain whether the stories that the women tell present a complete truth or whether they are personal mythologies.

The hand-held camera helps to naturalize the viewer's gaze. It wanders, scans, and drifts around the spaces the women occupy, flirting with the image, as if it, and therefore the viewer, is a direct witness to the captivating stories that the women tell. In addition, it adopts a point of view sensitive to each woman's story; for example, it respects the anonymity of Woman No. 3 a devout Muslim, by showing only a black screen. Finally, the fact that the projections appear larger than life involves the viewer in a way that extends beyond the visual.

But the larger-than-life dimensions of the projections also manifest the installation's mythologizing dimension. In addition, even though the camera's gaze and the contexts in which the stories are told are not fabricated, they are planned. The fact that Ataman's questions are often edited out of the final cut, and that the women are therefore responding to questions unheard by the audience, also indicates that the relationship between the viewer and the stories that the women tell is not as unmediated as the gaze of the hand-held camera might imply. But what other option is there to arrive closer to presenting what is called the truth? When the projections are viewed side by side, the poignant individual stories articulate an enveloping ideological and historical panorama that encourages the viewer to reflect on his or her own existence.

Within this panorama, wearing a wig fulfills many functions. It serves as a disguise for concealing repressed identities in a nation in which the visual construction of identity is a painfully urgent issue. It is a substitute for hair and, as such, signifies a biological lack with social implications. Operating as a trope for the creation, change, or concealment of a given identity, the wig, for each of the four women featured in the installation, unfolds beyond generalized and historically stable forms of identity production and invites a reflection on gender and state repression of a most perilous nature.

Woman No. 1 During the early 1970s, Melek Ulagay sympathized with a left-wing youth organization and was chosen by the State as a sacrificial goat. A young revolutionary who acted as a courier for her organization, she evaded the junta by disguising herself as a flight attendant and was eventually turned in to the authorities by a police informant who mistook her for a terrorist--the infamous "Hostess Leyla," a fictitious Turkish Airlines flight attendant that the junta created who was also a demented bomber. Forced into that role, she had no choice but to run. To disguise herself, she wore a long blonde wig, which made her even more conspicuous in a city where most women are dark-haired and where blonde women are often considered to be of dubious morals. Ulagay is shot first in a wig store, and then before the mirror in her bedroom. Her face is always disguised, usually cut by the frame.

Woman No. 2 is Nevval Sevindi, a well known journalist. She has become temporarily bald as a result of chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis. She is shot in a confrontational fashion, wearing a commanding and happy hue of pink during her chemotherapy, as she faces her baldness, and later more fatalistic and somber colors at the hairdresser's, where she reflects on womanhood, intimacy, and baldness.

Woman No. 3 prefers not to reveal her identity because she is concerned for her safety; hence, the frame is completely black, and one can only hear her voice recounting her story. She is a devout Muslim student not allowed to enter the classrooms of the university she attends because she wears a religious scarf, which the state does not allow in public buildings. She faces the difficulty of choosing between faith and education. Her solution is to wear a wig. This way, she looks secular enough to the authorities at the university, while her head is covered, as her faith requires.

Woman No. 4 is Demet Demir, a transsexual prostitute and activist, Demir is balding. Although she is a feminist who resists society's constant pressure on women to be beautiful at all times, she wears wigs because she has to work as a prostitute. When she is arrested, the police ridicule her and shave her head as punishment.

Woman No. 1 The police are really after me; perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that I am "wanted." Friends in Ankara tell me, "Wear a wig, so that they can't recognize you!" I end up with a wig as blonde as a baby chick! Curls all the way down. At the same time, I'm hiding out at a friend's house. Also in the hide-out are others. I can't tell them who I really am, so I introduce myself as a Turkish Airlines stewardess named Leyla. They never see me as I really am without the wig. I keep it on the whole day. I'm serving the underground as a messenger in my curly blonde wig and my hostess uniform. Later I secretly crossed the Syrian border and left the country. In Syria I wore an overall black veil. The situation changed and so did my identity. What happened to the wig? I don't remember, but I know that I never used it again. After leaving Istanbul, I was in hiding a great deal of the time. I was off the streets. In fact, I was in a hide-out for three months.

You never went out?

Never.

Woman No. 2 Having one's hair fall out is a terrible experience. First your hair starts to look as if it is pasted on your head; then thousands of hairs start flying in all directions with the slightest touch of the hand--leaving bare spots here and there. It's horrible to witness your hair fall out that way. Before it fell out on its own, I had my head completely shaved. But even so, your pillow in the mornings is covered with tiny pieces of hair. Hair continues to fall off until you are completely bald. The breast and the hair are the two most important symbols of womanhood. I didn't want to do injustice to them. I didn't want the forms comprising my life to change. My breasts have not changed. As to my hair--with the wig, it was as if it never fell off. Perhaps it's a feeling of privacy. The hairdresser was the only place where I relaxed a little. Visiting the hairdresser during chemotherapy and radiation comforted me immensely. No one at radiation saw me without a wig either. It was always on. We had beco me one, my wig and me.

Woman No. 3 When I first stepped into the classroom wearing a wig, I kept on telling myself that there is nothing to be embarrassed about, and that I am being forced into it, and that my friends know this. The number of days we had missed school had reached a critical level. On the one hand, I knew I had to stick to the head scarf, but on the other, I had to appreciate school. From the religious perspective, they neither tell you to wear it, nor not to. So, the decision is finally up to the individual. With the wig on, you can hardly listen to the instructors. Your body and your soul are far apart. You are both there and you are not! It's like you're wearing a mask. You can't recognize yourself. They are wrong if they think that by making us wear wigs we'll give up on our head scarves. When you put your head scarf on after having worn the wig, you start thinking how beautiful the head scarf is, how good it looks on you. You realize you've really missed it. You never get used to the wig.

Woman No.4 The first one was a black wig. I wanted to dress like a woman as soon as I could and wear my hair long. I was hoping that, one day, I would be out in the streets as a woman. I noticed that not many people could tell. The police know what the vital issue is! A woman has to have hair. The minute they cut his hair, the sex appeal has gone--they suffer spiritual trauma. Without hair, he can't even go out on the streets! However, there is the convenience of a wig. You wear the wig and go out again. They do cut the wigs of those they catch. My relationship with my sister and her husband are fine. She has two children. They found Out that I was a man. Apparently, the neighbors told them, "Your aunt is a man, which means he's your uncle!" The child was all confused, of course. But she is very fond of me. She whispered in my ear, "Aunty, you became a woman through an operation, is that so?" "Yes, I told her, "yes I did love!" I mean, no problems there.

Vasif Kortun is a writer, educator, and founder of the Istanbul Contemporary Art Project.

Kuclug Ataman's Women Who Wear Wigs was shown as part of dAPERTutto, APERTO over ALL, APERTO por TOUT, APERTO uber ALL at the 48th Venice Biennale, June 13-November 7, 1999. The texts published here have been condensed and edited.

COPYRIGHT 1999 College Art Association
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group