Crowning Glories
Charlie James Gallery is delighted to present Crowning Glories, Nancy Buchanan’s second solo show at the gallery, opening July 15th.
Words on the show from the artist:
As a graduate student, I was mentored by minimalist light-and-space artists, including Robert Irwin and Larry Bell and came to appreciate the total environment surrounding an artwork. I also appreciated the beauty of waste materials. When I made a rug of human hair and poodle fur, organized by length, color and texture, I was surprised by some viewers' visceral responses. This opened a new direction, and from that time on, I have made works involving hair.
Some, like Twin Corners and Hairdos, were installations. Hairdos utilized another waste material: aluminum turnings from metal recyclers—the dichotomy here was that the turnings looked soft, but of course were razor-sharp. For Twin Corners, I painted my body to mimic the space nearby. I also made a large pencil drawing of one of the large aluminum spheres. Hairdo Redux is a new version of this, charcoal on tissue. In 1972, for The New Art in Orange County exhibition, I sacrificed my own long hair in the performance Hair Transplant: I dyed it red and curled my waist-length hair, then replaced Bob Walker's moustache and body hair with my cut-off locks.
The mother of the nine muses, Mnemosyne, stores her own memory within her long hair. The substance of hair does recall one's heritage: the chain of maternal DNA can be found within individual hairs. My 1975 performance A Little Style involved arranging the hair of five women on or into semi-geometric forms, while each spoke about difficult childhood memories.
Hair is a product available from almost every human being. And, to celebrate its diversity and beauty, for the past several years I have been making illustrative portraits of hair and hair styles, sometimes incorporating actual samples. Locks of hair have long been kept as mementos of loved ones, and the Victorians crafted jewelry and picture frames from human hair. The issue of hair and appearance continues to be front and center, not only in artwork, but in politics, as The CROWN Act (Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) is a law recently enacted in several states that prohibits discrimination based on hair style and hair texture.
In 2012 I began still life drawings of toys "distressed" by my dogs. I always felt a deep connection to Mike Kelley's works that incorporated discarded crocheted afghans and old stuffed animals. In a way, these distressed toys resemble hair in that their scars contain the history of those who loved/abused them. Additionally, both series challenge the "cuteness" or attractiveness of the subjects. Hair, isolated from its human bearer, is uncanny. A lock of hair for the lost loved one. A chewed-up toy substitutes an abject aura for the quality of a new item.
— Nancy Buchanan, July 2020
Nancy Buchanan is a conceptual artist working in many forms; her performance works began in 1972, when she was a member of the infamous F Space Gallery in Santa Ana, CA; her earliest videotapes were recorded on open-reel Portapacks; and she has produced installations, drawings, and mixed-media work. Buchanan's work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Centre Pompidou, and the Getty Research Institute (where her papers and works are archived). She was the subject of a solo screening of her videotapes at REDCAT in 2013, and her videos have been included in international exhibitions. Buchanan is the recipient of four National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist grants, a COLA grant, and a Rockefeller Fellowship in New Media. In 2016, she organized It’s Your Party, a durational performance at UC Irvine’s xMPL Theater as the second event in The Art of Performance. Buchanan lives and works in Los Angeles.
Selected Works
Installation
