The Bar Mitzvah is a meaningful transitional moment in a jewish person’s life. It’s when the young person is being inaugurated into the community. Not having one in his youth, Ariel Efraim Ashbel entered the process in adulthood and performed the ceremony on his 40th birthday, in the summer of 2022. The process, framed as a “life-specific” artwork commissioned and produced by the jewish museum and Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, unfolded through several residencies throughout the year and culminated in a weekend-long performance piece mixing actual religious ritual, live music and a festive happening with guests, family and friends. The process was also closely documented by video artist Daphna Keenan, and resulted in six short films. Combining historical research with performative strategies, “it takes a village: Bar Mitzvah’d at Forty” addressed the tensions between private and public, personal and artistic, memory and speculation, and between spiritual commitment and intersectional solidarity.
Commissioned by METAHub Frankfurt, a collaboration between The Jewish Museum and Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm
