Pink Combs and Brushes

Photograph by Tom Kiefer, 2012. Via the New York Times

For over 10 years Tom Kiefer, a Customs and Border Protection center janitor, collected items confiscated by Border Patrol agents from migrants crossing the United States border with Mexico.

Combs, brushes and mirrors were considered nonessential and possibly dangerous, he said.

Fleas in My Hair

WWII U.S. Army Corp Nurses Washing Their Hair, 1945.
from the collection of U.S. Army nurse Joy Lillie at Grand Rapids.Historical Commission
"Joy went for 30 days without taking a bath when she first arrived."

 

"I do not mind not washing for a week or more, but I do hate getting fleas in my hair." 

Clare Hollingworth,
the war correspondent who broke the news of the outbreak of World War II, in her memoir.
Ms. Hollingworth died at 105 on Tuesday, January 10, 2017.

Hair by Sam McKnight

There is another exhibition on hair coming. (I failed to write up the one in Utrecht earlier this year, but will one of these days....) This one, Hair by Sam McKnight, will feature fashion photographs!

The exhibition will be on view at the Somerset House in London from 2 November 2016 – 12 March  2017. Here's the press release. Of course, I question the claim I've formatted in boldface below. I predict a bunch of fashion photos on the wall with some brief didactic text introducing the exhibition. Call me cynical.

This autumn, Somerset House is proud to present Hair by Sam McKnight, a major exhibition celebrating the master hairstylist’s remarkable 40 year career, from the late 1970s to the current day. An integral part of the fashion industry, Sam has been instrumental in helping to develop the images of Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Princess Diana among many others. He is one of the first session stylists to have carved out a career solely within fashion, having worked on hundreds of fashion editorial shoots, advertising campaigns and catwalk shows. He has shot over 100 covers for British Vogue alone, as well as numerous other magazines and worked with most international fashion designers from Chanel to Vivienne Westwood.

The exhibition will unveil the little-known creative process behind the craft of hair styling within fashion and explore the relationships between McKnight and key, long-term collaborators; photographers such as Nick Knight and Patrick Demarchelier, models including Kate Moss, Stella Tennant and Christy Turlington, stylist Lucinda Chambers, and designer Karl Lagerfeld.

This will be the first exhibition of its kind, looking at hair from a new perspective and contextualising its wider cultural significance and the role of the session stylist within fashion. It will include some of the most iconic images in popular culture and some of fashion’s most memorable looks, from Princess Diana’s short, slicked back style to Madonna’s Bedtime Stories, and Tilda Swinton channelling David Bowie, tracing different movements and hairstyles, from nostalgic to androgynous, romantic to sexy, red to platinum, cataloguing the transformative nature of hair within the image.

Exhibiting pieces from Sam’s extensive archive, gathered over his 40 year career, the exhibition will feature photography, magazines, catwalk and behind-the-scenes footage, private photographs and full outfit looks as well as commissioned wigs and hairpieces. Grouped into thematic sections, the exhibition will explore process, relationships and collaboration, movement, transformation, the shoot and the catwalk. Throughout the exhibition a visual timeline will trace not only Sam’s career from the late 1970s to today, but also track changing styles through time; exploring the relationship between fashion shoots and the street in influencing contemporary hair styling.

To be published at the same time as the exhibition, there will be a book by the same name, Hair by Sam McKnight with texts by Tim Blanks, Alexander Fury, Amanda Harlech, Nick Knight, Camilla Morton, Anna-Marie Solowij, Jerry Stafford and commentary by Sam McKnight featuring images spanning his entire career. Richly illustrated, it features photographs by leading fashion photographers and styles commissioned by Vivienne Westwood, Balmain, Chanel, and many others.  A unique reference book that offers a glamorous tour through the past forty years and a style bible for glorious looks, the book is published by Rizzoli and priced at £35.00.

The exhibition is curated by Shonagh Marshall and exhibition design is by Michael Howells.

Cutting Hair

Photographer Wallace Kirkland - "Cutting hair" - 1947. Public domain image.

Every summer from 1912 until 1963, children from the steamy and congested streets of Chicago's Near West Side ran and played amidst the wildflowers and trees at the Joseph T. Bowen Country Club. Located on 72 acres of forest, field, and ravine near Waukegan, Illinois, the Bowen Country Club was the summer camp of the world famous Hull-House social settlement house. Financed by philanthropist and social activist Louise deKoven Bowen, the camp sought to provide a sojourn in the country as a necessary antidote to the stresses of city life. Prominent Chicagoans donated funds to build sleeping cottages and children and mothers were invited to the camp for two-week rotations. Days were packed with activities such as swimming in the camp's circular pool, team and individual sports contests, classes in folk or rhythmic dance, games, parties, and art lessons. After a hearty meal in the Commons dining room, a campfire and sing-a-long often ended the day.

~ Via University of Illinois at Chicago Library

Artistic hair cut

Jackson Pollock cutting his father's hair, 1927. From the Archives of American Art.

Pétrole Hahn Hair Tonic

Pétrole Hahn hair tonic was sold beginning in 1885.

Here are some of their art deco and other vintage print ads.

Pétrole Hahn advertisement, L’Illustration, February 9, 1918, page 2. Public domain image.

Pétrole Hahn advertisement, from Les Feuillets d'Art, 1920.

Pétrole Hahn advertisement, pochoir from Les Feuillets d'Art, 1920.

Pétrole Hahn advertisement, “arrête la chute des cheveux,” illustration by Charles Martin, unknown date.
 

Pétrole Hahn advertisement, L’Illustration, December 6, 1930.

Pétrole Hahn advertisement, designed by Andre Wilquin, circa 1930.

Ellen Auerbach, Grete Stern, Studio Ringl & Pit, Pétrole Hahn, 1931.
Collection SFMOMA. © Ringl & Pit, courtesy Robert Mann Gallery. (1)

 Dora Maar and Pierre Kefer, "Étude publicitaire pour Pétrole Hahn." Original silver gelatin glass negative plate.
Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, 1934. (2)

 Dora Maar, ferrotyped, 1935. (3)

1. The Jewish Women's Archive interviewed the photographers Ellen Auerbach and Grete Stern about their image which was used as an ad for Pétrole Hahn hair lotion. It combined a nightgown, mannequin head, and a real hand, but the photographers later forgot whose hand was in the photo and which one took the photograph.

2. Dora Maar's surrealist advertising work in the early 1930s, included this image of a boat sailing through an ocean of hair.
3. www.mutualart.com

Marks of the Genuine Man

Boru O'Brien O'Connell - Marks of the Genuine Man (Emerson) - c-print - 2008

The Hair Craft Project | Artprize

Art Fag City has some harsh words for Sonya Clark's winning submission to this year's Artprize.

I do not approve of the Grand jury’s decision to split the grand prize with Sonya Clark’s “The Haircraft Project.” This was an entirely formulaic piece. A series of hairdressers were asked to style Clark’s hair. They were then photographed in such a way that they were merely a blurry presence behind their creation. After the shot was taken, they were asked to translate their hairstyle onto stretched canvas. The photographs were terrible. The work on stretched canvas inevitably ended up in the center. It tells us nothing we didn’t know already about women’s hair.

Granted, this might not be the strongest work Clark's done but I'm not sure it's as bad as the generally negative Paddy Johnson would have you. Shamefully, I haven't yet written a post on Sonya Clark's extensive body of hair-centric work, but don't you worry....coming soon!

Hair and urban infrastructure

  Toa Oil Company Refinery, 2014. Detail.

Japanese artist Takahiro Iwasaki used matted human hair to create some of his recent works. Commissioned by the Kawasaki City Museum and the Open Museum Project for the exhibition (and the artist's on-going project) Out of Disorder, Iwasaki's miniatures of Kawaski's industrial landscape were made from hair, textile fibers, and dust and inspired by the land razed by WWII air raids, a devastation to Japan with which little can compare.

In order to recreate the nine oil refineries, power plants, natural gas generators, and gantry cranes, the artist sourced images from Google Earth because the physical buildings were inaccessible. Buildings were selected for their location and perspective. "He held an impression of Kawasaki as the industrial backbone of Japan that supported the country in its years of economic growth and manufacturing boom...These landscapes exude post-war determination. Iwasaki also admitted that he was conscious of the iconic Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama's works when creating these gritty pieces. Moriyama's grainy, black and white shots of urban Japan portray a similar era as the one to which these smoky chimneys and metallic towers, representing a sweaty, manual, and industrial Japan belong."1

 

 Showa Shell Sekiyu refinery, 2014

With the frailty of materials at the fore, each diorama seems a melancholic poem to the vestige of Japan's earlier strength, yet their morbid palate of greys also evoke the soot, smoke and fog of Victorian England, the destructive visual leveling of volcanic ash, a post-apocalyptic scene, and shades of grey of the dying and decay of the body itself.

TAKAHIRO IWASAKI was born in Hiroshima Japan and studied MA Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art in 2005. Out of Disorder ran Feb 15 - Mar 30, 2014.

Higashi-Ohgishima LNG terminal and Ohgishima thermal power plant 2.

But let us linger on nostalgia only briefly, for how can we not be reminded of the more recent urban devastation of Detroit?

there is only so much that the past can offer a nostalgic consciousness, which has nothing to offer but the guarantee of its spectatorship, of looking and watching—the docile view...the nostalgic wants to extinguish the world so that it can be perfected imaginatively. This has traditionally been the special enterprise of art. 3.

 Graffiti decorates the ruins of the Packard Automotive Plant, a 35 acre site where luxury cars were manufactured until the 1950s on May 2, 2013 in Detroit, Michigan. Photo by Ann Hermes-Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images

 In this Dec. 11, 2008 file photo, pedestrians walk by the abandoned Packard plant in Detroit.
AP Photo/Carlos Osorio

 The abandoned Detroit Public Schools book depository

The abandoned Fisher Body Plant. 4.

1. http://www.azito-art.com/topics/exhibition/takahiro-iwasaki-out-of-disorder-at-kawasaki-city-museum.html#.U5tOHi9r07D
2. Image captions from http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2014/06/04/out-of-disorder-miniature-scenes-of-industrial-japan-sculpted-from-cloth-fibers-and-human-hair-by-takahiro-iwasaki/ 
3. Nostalgia by Ricky D’Ambrose  / http://quarterlyconversation.com/nostalgia 
4. Detroit photos / http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/detroit-federal-money-aid-infographic_n_3799875.html

Hair: Fashion and Fantasy ~ a book

There are some fun image in this new coffee table book Hair: Fashion and Fantasy by Vogue hair stylist Laurent Philippon (Thames & Hudson, October 2013). For me, it's got more surface and style than depth and history, but it sure makes good eye candy!

Photo: Christophe Kutner

“You could rewrite the history of human society with the story of hair,” says author Laurent Philippon. The book looks at hair trends from African tribal fashions to today’s runways and includes texts from contemporary figures Daphne Guinness and Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, photographer David LaChapelle, and hairstylists Laurent Philippon, Orlando Pita, and Julien d’Ys, with 
a few offbeat commentaries -- Yannick d’Is on working with Avedon, Veruschka on Ara Gallant, Patti Wilson 
on the Afro, Amanda Lepore on transsexual glamour...

There are celebrations of legendary fashion moments, such as Kate Moss’s first ever photoshoot, together with burlesque heroine Dita von Teese writing on Hollywood glamour, a street-level view of London’s Seventies punk scene, Vidal Sassoon in one of his last interviews, and beauty editor Kathy Phillips on blondes.

 Photo: Richard Burbridge

 Photo of Daphne Guinness by François Nars

Photo: Ben Hassett

 Hair by Antoine.

 Photo of Kristen by Philip Riches

Photo: Ben Hassett

Photo: Patrick Demarchelier

 Photo: Marc Segal

Photo: David Marvier, 2011. 

Photo: Herlinde Koelbl, 2007.

Eyes | Brows | Braids

Alexander McQueen Fall/Winter 2014
Alfredo Piola for The New York Times

Bushes for Sale

Art F City is hosting an auction on Paddle8. You can bid on items online through Monday, February 17th at NOON or head over to Postmasters Gallery for the live auction with CK Swett at 7:45PM.  The best of the bunch are the bushes! Two ink jet prints of Marilyn Minter's hyper-real paintings:

Fur, 2013		Carpet, 2013

Art F City supports emerging artists and critical writers by exposing them to a broader and underserved audience through informed, straightforward discussion.

Denise Grünstein: Figure Out

Swedish photographer Denise Grünstein's 2009 series "Figure Out" places solitary, faceless women masked by hair in surreal, Dali-blue-skied environments or dark, simple rooms reminiscent of those found in 17th-century Flemish still lifes. The woman are positioned centrally, yet appear passive. The effect is dreamlike - women at odds with their environments, placed awkwardly, displaced and misplaced. Many images depict hair found on dining tables draped in white linen, suggesting that the hair is edible, can be consumed. But the women are also being consumed by hair their hair. If hair can be understood as something that directly shapes our looks, perhaps these images imply the contradiction of both consuming and being consumed by appearance/appearing.

Denise Grünstein's work is on view in Different Distances: Fashion Photography Goes Art, an exhibition at Aperture Gallery from February 6–February 14, 2014.

  Head over Heels, 2009

 Figure Out, 2009

Female Gaze, 2009

Figurine, 2009

Headhunter, 2009

 Inside looking out, Outside looking in, 2009

 Tied, 2009

Video still from All Flesh is Grass. The title refers to the perishing, temporary nature of everything.

Movember Moustaches

There is something distinctly whimsical about Movember, the month of the moustache. Started in 2003, Movember is a charitable campaign that highlights, and raises money for, men’s health issues by asking men to grown moustaches for the month. Here are a few ways that folks are bringing a smile to my day:

1. Lost in E Minor's "Airplanes with Moustaches" post

 2. Victoria and Albert Museum's moustache broach to bring out your inner modern day dandy.

3. The Moustache Calendar began in 2004 as a crazy idea dreamt up by two college roommates who needed to raise money for airfare to Hawaii. Matthew Cavallaro, a collaborator on this year's calendar entitled "The Very Best," says, "Throughout history, the moustache has been a symbol of empowerment for men. We wanted to celebrate the legacy of the moustache in design, fashion, and adventure. The calendar walks a thin line between pop art and fine art. We're making some bold statements about how relevant we believe it should be in popular culture, while obviously being a bit tongue-in- cheek."

4. Asos is offering a wide selection of moustache-related items, including a pack of 3 enamel charm rings, a moustache knitted beanie by River Island, and a moustache clutch by Koku.

5. The Moustache Bow Tie Project is a Kick Starter campaign brought to you by Knot Theory, the creator's of last year's successful Kick Starter project The Moustache Tie Clip Project. Knot Theory is a fashion label based out of Vancouver, Canada.

6. The third annual Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships took place on Sunday, November 11, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's hard to imagine a more important event for American enthusiasts of facial hair. Growers were judged in eighteen categories, including the Dali,
Imperial, Hungarian, and the Musketeer.

7. The Manly 'Stache. This is now a couple of years old, but it's hard to resist a blog post marveling over the most manly of mustaches....

Happy Movember!!!