Press Release: Hair

New Tang exhibition teases out the social meanings of hair, from the Renaissance era to the present

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.—Hair might be defined in any standard dictionary as “a slender threadlike outgrowth of the epidermis of an animal.” But hair can also be a subtle and complex cultural signifier that establishes identities and marks hierarchies, as proposed in the new exhibition titled Hair: Untangling a Social History, at the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College. On view from January 31- through June 6, 2004, the exhibition will explore the meaning of facial, head, and body hair in western society from the Renaissance to the present.

“We—like our ancestors before us—manipulate hair to tell our world who we are,” said the exhibition’s curator Penny Jolly. A professor of art history and Kenan Professor of Liberal Arts at Skidmore, Jolly explained that social circumstances determine the styling and appearance of our hair, a fiber whose versatility lends itself to almost endless manipulation. “We wash it and dry it, bleach it and dye it, “ Jolly said. “We shave and transplant it, we buy conditioners, wigs and switches, frosting kits, blow dryers, razors, curling irons, powders, and sprays. Growth of body hair tells us we are mature, and its loss signals our decline.” Sampling hair styles and treatments over the past four centuries indexes our changing attitudes toward sex, social status, politics, and religion.

The 125 works on view in Hair will juxtapose paintings, prints, and photographs with objects from popular culture—Victorian hair wreaths, vintage shavers, hair dryers, and more—as well as works by contemporary artists whose media include or reflect on hair. The array of styling products and advertisements included in the exhibition range from antique curling irons to Burma Shave road signs of the 1940s.

One of the oldest works on view is a six-by-eight-inch oil portrait (circa 1560) of the young Count d’Angouleme, whose close-cropped hair and wispy goatee make him look startlingly like a contemporary college student in spite of his high Elizabethan collar. An 18th-century etching depicts the opposite extreme in hair lengths, showing a well-dressed lady in a towering wig—and a hunter taking aim at the flock of birds flying in to roost in it.

The Hair exhibition includes romantic images like the 19th-century painting of Venus Lamenting Adonis, in which the goddess’s dark, lustrous tresses flow almost to her feet, and contemporary works such as the 1987 Carrie Mae Weems photograph titled Snow White—Mirror Mirror. In text printed across the photograph, a black woman asks her mirror “Who is fairest of them all?” and is told “Snow White… and don’t you forget it!” Objects on view range from the comic to the poignant, from Bozo the Clown’s frizzy red wig to Hair of Famous Writers, in which the framed photos of Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Robert Browning appear above memorial locks of their hair, which has long outlasted their illustrious heads.

Beyond the ’do: Hair as a socio-cultural signifier

Shifts in hair style typically reflect major political and social movements, as when hippies in the 1960s grew long hair and beards to separate their counterculture from the finely coiffed establishment’s, feminists in the 1970s stopped shaving their legs and underarm hair, and black men and women wore Afros to signal their return to their racial roots.

But no person’s hair is truly "natural," according to exhibition curator Penny Jolly. In societies worldwide, differing social circumstances determine the appearance of head and body hair, Jolly explains in the exhibition’s catalogue. For instance, religious institutions frequently control hair: Christian monks shave their head hair into tonsures and Muslim women cover theirs, while Hasidic men grow payis and their wives wear wigs in public. Hair styling also reinforces class and political differences. In France, powdered wigs initially distinguished 17th- and 18th-century aristocrats—giving rise to the term "bigwig"—but were then sported by the rising bourgeoisie, only to be finally overturned by the revolutionaries’ assertion of Republican "naturalism" following the
Revolution. For Fidel Castro, the beard identified his followers, setting them apart from the defeated, clean-shaven Cuban army: "Your beard does not belong to you. It belongs to the Revolution." Today Neo-Nazi skinheads, by their almost bald pates, signal their acceptance of Fascist politics, and Hitler’s Aryan blonde ideal is revived—an ideal which never existed within the actual German population of the 1930s.

Hair styling—for both women and men—does not come inexpensively, and supports a multibillion-dollar industry, including both hair salons and modern do-it-yourself home hair care products that have flooded the market to make change increasingly easy. Throughout history, formulas, equipment, and personnel for manipulating hair have flourished.

Hair: Untangling a Social History also demonstrates the ubiquitous nature of products and tools related to hair care. Particularly famous ad campaigns from the 20th century are represented: the Gillette safety razor, the Breck Girl campaign for shampoo, and Burma Shave’s famous roadside jingles.

Public events of the exhibition

The free public events accompanying Hair will include the following:
• “Hair Lines”—Thursday, Feb. 12, at 8 p.m. Poetry readings and art films.
• “Bad Hair Day”—Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 8 p.m. Presentation by Marianne LaFrance, professor of psychology and women’s and gender studies at Yale University.
• Hair Stories—Wednesday, March 3, at 7 p.m. A showing of the documentary Hair Stories, followed by discussion with the filmmaker, Yvette Smalls, and Jerry Philogene of the Skidmore College American studies faculty.
• A noon curator’s tour of the exhibition—Tuesday, April 6.
• Sunday Hair film series—Hair-inspired movies, all beginning at 3 p.m., include Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Feb. 22); Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Feb. 29); and Hairspray (March 7).

Hair: Untangling a Social History will be accompanied by a catalogue of more than 50 images and a selection of essays written by curator Jolly and Skidmore colleagues from the departments of art history, anthropology, exercise science, and sociology. The exhibition is made possible in part with support from the Gillette Corporation.

The Tang Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The museum is closed Mondays and major holidays. Suggested donations are $5 for adults, $3 for children over 12, and $2 for senior citizens. For information call 518-580-8080 or go to www.skidmore.edu/tang.

Skidmore College, located in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., is an independent, liberal arts institution known for its interdisciplinary curriculum. The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery on the Skidmore campus serves as a center to explore all areas of study through the visual arts.

PDF: Hair: Untangling a Social History Hair_PR.pdf