Ellen Gallagher

DeLuxe consists of sixty prints involving a riot of materials, including velvet, toy ice cubes, and googly eyeballs, and techniques ranging from old-fashioned photogravure to recent developments in digital technology. Each print began with a magazine page selected from the artist’s collection of titles geared toward African American audiences, such as Sepia, Our World, and Ebony, dating from the 1930s to the ’70s. While some of the prints are drawn from celebrity features or news stories, the majority are based on advertisements. Many of these suggest means for personal improvement and play on readers’ desire for transformation via products such as wigs, hair pomades, acne treatments, and skin-bleaching creams. To create these works, Gallagher drew and redrew, masked out and added text, cut and pasted images, and collaged on three-dimensional elements. The resulting images are intensely personalized, transformed in both form and content.

In a deft commentary on race, racism, and cultural identity, DeLuxe addresses the complex role hair plays in African and African American culture: it is a means of ornament, adornment, and personal expression; a signifier of cultural identity and difference; and a talisman for both strength and protection.