HAIR STORIES

Curated by Ruth Marten

April 19 - May 24, 2002

Adam Baumgold Gallery presents the exhibition Hair Stories, curated by Ruth Marten, whose artwork for the past dozen years has been exclusively devoted to hair themes. The exhibition examines contemporary art's fascination with hair and hairstyles as a human response to a cool and hypertechnological culture. It reflects the many aspects of hair through painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, found objects and Momento Mori by twenty six artists. The artists included in the exhibition are Celio Braga, Brian Cronin, Victoria Di Nardo, Jeanne Dunning, Don Ed Hardy, David Humphrey, Laura Karp, Cynthia Lin, Antonio Lopez, Adele Lutz, Ruth Marten, J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, Annee Olofsson, Hun Ju Park, Paul Pfeiffer, Christina Ramberg, Nadine Robinson, Donna Sharrett, Robbin Ami Silverberg, King Szeto, Masako Takahashi, John Waters, Neil Winokur and Ray Yoshida.

Obsession and detailed craft is a key component in many works in this exhibition. Paul Pfeiffer's large photograph Leviathan presents a diagramatic view of a basilica made with Barbie doll hair. Adele Lutz's undergarments are painstakingly sewn with luxuriant hair in all the right places. Don Ed Hardy uses tattoo's visual symbolism to create dark and iconic dreamscapes, while Christina Ramberg's meticulous painting Head Vase, 1977 is concerned with the textures, shapes and patterns of a tightly bound coif and how this form morphs into another object altogether. Ray Yoshida's collage OOOOH!, 2002 features highly abstracted, heiroglyphic rows of hairdos made from newspaper comics. Hun Ju Park's labor intensive painting is done with ink on wood with hair and encrustation of tiny nail heads, while Celio Braga has coated bars of soap with impossible patterns made of infinitesimal pieces of hair. Cynthia Lin's silverpoint drawings appear at first to be blank white pages strewn with hair clippings that seem so ephemeral that they could blow away.

Hair speaks of cultural heritage as in Nadine Robinson's black hair extension sculptural painting and also in a hair tunic from Cameroon, completely covered with small balls of hair. A dead-pan wit is shown in Neil Winokur's photograph of Cindy Sherman's wig and Annee Olofsson's photograph Unfamiliar, 2001 of a constrained blond in a film noir scenario.

The gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 - 5:30 PM. A preview of the exhibition can be seen at www.adambaumgoldgallery.com.