News
Hair Power: Culture, Materiality, Politics of Hair in Contemporary Art
Panel chair: Rosemary Meza-DesPlas
CAA 113th Annual conference
Friday, February 14, 2025: 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM, New York Hilton Midtown, Grand Ballroom West
This panel considers how contemporary artists engage with human hair in their studio practices. In Textures: The History and Art of Black Hair, artist Sonya Clark is quoted: “Hair was the first fiber that people manipulated for aesthetic and functional reasons.” Hair has a relationship to sexuality, age, race, social class, health, power, and religion. Ethnicity, race, and gender intersect within hair as reflections of identity. Entanglements between ethnicity, gender, and race differences affect the visual constructions of hair artworks. The artist’s technical ability to manipulate hair strands is impacted by the ethnicity and race of the sourced hair. Transformation of hair into artwork is repurposed materiality. Materiality of hair coincides with feminism at the point it speaks to issues of body image, femininity, and identity. Hair can carry forward historical meanings associated with religion and mythology. Due to its correlation to material culture, hair may reflect political agency. In 2022, women filmed themselves cutting their hair; ordinary actions became acts of protest. ‘Hair for Freedom’ showed solidarity with Iranian women and protested the death of Mahsa Amini. Crafted hair in contemporary artwork can be interpreted as exoticizing women, ritualistic movements, critical gendered commentary, or multidimensional stories.
Exhibition catalog from My Hair Story: From Brunette to Gray is available on Amazon.
My Hair Story: from Brunette to Gray has an ISBN number of 9798325106026. It is a 57 page catalog with 45 images and an essay by the Chicanx scholar Karen Mary Davalos. The catalog documents 22 years of my hair artwork. I am a Texas-born artist who currently resides in Farmington, New Mexico. I have diligently collected, preserved, and created provocative art with my hair, culminating in what is today the most complete intersectional feminist exploration of gender inequality, political agency, and cultural misconceptions through corporeal ephemera that exists.
Aquí & Allá, Conversations with Creators from México and the USA
I am honored to be a featured artist in this 2024 book. Aquí&Allá, Conversations with Creators from México and the USA a two volume set containing interviews with 20 internationally recognized artists.
This project’s roots are in the early days of the COVID Pandemic as a podcast series and has now taken publication form thanks to funding from the Mexican Government’s ‘Fomento a Proyectos y Coinversiones Culturales 2022’ grant of the Sistema de Apoyos a la Creación y Proyectos Culturales of México.
Aquí y Allá: Vol. Uno is dedicated to Mexican and Mexican ancestry artists working in Mexico and the United States. This book includes interviews with: Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Alicia Laguna, Jorge Rojas, Rodrigo Castillo Filomarino, J. Leigh Garcia, Blanka Amezkua, Georgina Escobar, Daniel Godinez Nivón, Hoesy Corona, and Omar Carrum. This publication is produced by PROArtes Mexico. For more information: Aquí & Allá
Latinx Artist Fellowship
I am excited to announce that I am the recipient of the Latinx Artist Fellowship!
This fellowship supports some of the most compelling Latinx visual artists working in the United States today. It is an honor to be recognized and to be in the company of brilliant artists that make up this cohort!
Fellowship codesigned and managed by US Latinx Art Forum (@uslaforum) in collaboration with the New York Foundation for the Arts (@nyfacurrent). Cofounded by The Ford Foundation (@fordfoundation) and the Mellon Foundation (@mellonfdn).
Latinx Artist Fellowship Cohort 2022-2023: Tanya Aguiñiga, Candida Alvarez, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Maria Gaspar, Jay Lynn Gomez, Lucia Hierro, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Koyoltzintli, Leslie Martinez, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Las Nietas de Nonó, Carmelita Tropicana (Alina Troyano), Juana Valdés, Vincent Valdez.
Latinx Artist Fellowship Website Link: https://mellon.org/programs/arts-and-culture/latinx-artist-fellowship/
