Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Women Framing Hair: Serial Strategies in Contemporary Art Thesis How to cite: Hanna, Heather J. (2012). Women Framing Hair: Serial Strategies in Contemporary Art. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2012 The Author https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.0000ee39 Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk ifiiifllilil Women Framing Hair: Serial Strategies in Contemporary Art Heather Hanna, BA Hons Fine Art, MA Art History Part 1 Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Art History Department The Open University 30 September 2011 t4;T~ of- 50t:rn I:::':""H){\· \(1 ~'( "i~()\B(;r~ ;Z 011 f)A\(;. ~:" A~~t:\.~..:t; : 21 fE-e".\_'A~, i 2012. VOL2 -RESTRICTED ACCESS- 2 Abstract This thesis explores the complex and enigmatic motif of hair in the work of five contemporary women artists, Chryst! Rijkeboer, Alice Maher, Annegret Soltau, Kathy Prendergast and Ellen Gallagher, from the late 1970s to the present. The purpose of the research is to investigate why hair is such a productive and resonant site of meaning, how it is suggestive of and responds to serial strategies, and why it appears to be of particular significance to women who are artists. I explore the implications ofhair as an embodied material, as well as its role as a haptic metaphor of the life cycle. I also discuss some of the divergent histories of hair as a rich marker of identity in cultural discourses of beauty, myth and femininity, and as a symbol of status and power. What might be seen as a darker, more liminal side ofhair as a site of excess and body waste, and its ability to represent trauma and 'wounding', are also explored. As I argue, through its somatic connections hair can be positioned both of, and yet abjected from, the living body. Informed by a range of theoretical approaches, this research has drawn on Julia Kristeva's theorizations of the abject, Helene Cixous's notion of ecriture feminine, and a Deleuzian consideration of difference. A major concern is the different artists' strategies and negotiations with notions of seriality, which enable rich and compelling possibilities for writing the female body in imaginative and fluid ways. This, together with gender issues, identity and the body - specifically the head - and memory as a marker of biography, are key themes throughout the thesis. In combination with its historiography, the medium of hair and its simulacra in art practice are seen to have the potential to challenge and subvert conceptions of feminine identity and some of the bastions of traditional painting and sculpture. 3 Contents PARTl Acknowledgements 5 List of Figures 6 Lnttoduction 9 Why Hair? 16 Hair and Art Histories 18 Hair: Literature Review 28 Methodology and Approach 38 Overview of Thesis Chapters 40 Chapter 1. Hairy Houses and Traumatic Echoes: Chrystl Rijkeboer's Serial Use of Hair 46 Introduction 46 Hair and Historical Trauma 52 Hairy Houses and Familial Frames 63 Women's Practice and Feminist Concerns 69 Hair and Fairytales 74 Seriality, Cloning and Archiving Identity 78 Hair and Portraiture 82 Conclusion 90 Chapter 2. Flow, Tangle and Coil: Alice Maher's Feminine Tresses 92 Introduction 92 Hair and Seriality 96 Myth and Fairytales 109 The Girl-Child and Feminine Hair 118 Flows, Streams, and Becomings 124 Conclusion 129 Chapter 3. Binding, Stitching, Trauma and the Haptic Thread: Annegret Soltau 132 Introduction 132 German Context 136 A Haptic Thread 142 The Serial Line 149 Responses to Trauma: Hair, Webs and Thread 154 Identity and Erasure 164 Experiences of the Wounded Body 168 Conclusion 173 4 Chapter 4. Mapping Irish Identities and Domesticity: Hair inthe Work.of Kathy Prendergast and Dorothy Cross 176 Introduction 176 Irishness: Ideologies of Land and Woman 180 Hair and Women's Time 192 Diaspora and Domesticity 197 Mapping Hair: A Human Geography of Place, Time, and Self 203 Seriality and Equilibrium 209 Places and Spaces 213 Conclusion 217 Chapter 5. Revision, Transfonnation and Hair-Dos in the Work of Ellen Gallagher 220 Introduction 220 Histories of Black Hair 229 "It's all about repetition and revision": Processes, Tools, Materials 233 Gender, Blondeness, and The Middle Passage 246 The Languages of Hair 259 Irish Blackness 264 Conclusion 269 Conclusion 272 Serial Matter 274 Hair as Metaphor 276 The Prevalence of Hair in the Art Practices of Women 279 Appendix 1: Interview with Chrystl Rijkeboer 285 Appendix 2: Interview with Annegret Soltau 293 Bibliography 312 PARTll Appendix 3: Figures 5 Acknowledgements lowe my deepest gratitude to The Open University for the three-year bursary that enabled me to undertake this research project, and for additional funds made available for research visits to The Netherlands and Germany. I would also like to thank my supervisor Professor Gill Perry for her unstinting patience, advice and generosity, Dr Steve Edwards for his invaluable criticism on an earlier draft, and Dr Angeline Morrison for encouraging me to embark on this research degree. I wish to acknowledge the artists, whose works have been central to this study, and in particular thank Chryst! Rijkeboer and Annegret Soltau, who invited me to their studios to interview them about their art practices. They have both been exceptionally generous with their time, and showed a genuine interest in my topic over the past three years. I am also grateful to Alice Maher for her obliging and constructive responses to my questions. Thanks go to Ruth Spurgeon for her painstaking translations of several German texts, for clarifying nuances about the socio-cultural histories of Germany, and transcribing and translating my interview with Annegret Soltau. Thanks also to Mark for his intellectual stimulation and to Deirdre and Mandy for their encouragement and support. And finally, heartfelt thanks to my daughters Katie and Esmee, and my mother Elizabeth, for supporting all my endeavors, and to Seamus, for everything and always. 6 List of Figures i Chiharu Shiota, After The Dream (2009) ii Millie Wilson, Wig/Cunt (1990) iii Valie Export, GenitaJpanik(1969) iv Shigeko Kubota, Vagina Painting (1965) v Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll (1975) 1.1 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Het Oordeel (1998) 1.2 Chryst! Rijkeboer, The Human System (1997) 1.3 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Onschuld 1(1998) 1.4 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Onschuld 11(1998) 1.5 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Strijd (1998) 1.6 Chrystl Rijkeboer, Lost Memories (2000) 1.7 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Memories (2000) 1.8 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Installatie Onschuld (1998) 1.9 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Home Sweet Home (2008) 1.10 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Sisters (2007) 1.11 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Burica (2006) 1.12 Chryst! Rijkeboer, She Only Wanted a Boy (2004) 1.13 Margi Geerlinks, Untitled (Mother Knitting Child) (1998) 1.14 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Forever Young (2001) 1.15 Chryst! Rijkeboer, R 'sEscape (2008) 1.16 Chrystl Rijkeboer, Rapunzel (2010) 1.17 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Safe House (2010) 1.18 Chryst! Rijkeboer, All in the Family (2010) 1.19 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Kiss o/the Wolf(2010) 1.20 Chrystl Rijkeboer, Onschuld (1998) 1.21 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Heaven or Hell, I, J J and J 11(2003) 1.22 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Baalbushka and Babooska (2003) 1.23 Marc Quinn, Self(1991-) 1.24 Marc Quinn, Sir John Edward Sulston (2001) 1.25 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Family Portrait (2005) 1.26 Chrystl Rijkeboer, The Wedding (2005) 1.27 Chrystl Rijkeboer, Avatar (2006) 1.28 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Avatar (2006) 1.29 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Perfect Strangers (2004) 1.30 Chryst! Rijkeboer, Working Through the Wolf(2011) 1.31 Chrystl Rijkeboer, Beyond the Wolf(2011) 2.1 Alice Maher, Keep (1992) 2.2 Alice Maher, Fait (1993) 2.3 Alice Maher, Familiar] (1994) 2.4 William Hincks, Representing Spinning (1791) 2.5 Alice Maher, Swimmers (1996) 2.6 Alice Maher, Swimmers (1994) 2.7 Alice Maher, Les Filles d'Ouranos (1996) 2.8 Alice Maher, House of Thoms (1995) 2.9 Alice Maher, Andromeda (2000) 2.10 Helen Chadwick, Loop My Loop (1991) 2.11 Alice Maher, The Thicket (1990) 7 2.12 Alice Maher, Ta/king to My Hair (1994) 2.13 Alice Maher, Orsola (2006) 2.14 Alice Maher, Shard (200 1) 2.15 Alice Maher, The Thicket (2005) 2.16 Alice Maher, Double Venus (2005) 3.1 Annegret Soltau, Generattv (1994-2005) 3.2 Annegret Soltau, Umschlossene (1973) 3.3 Annegret Soltau, Umschlossener Kopf(1974) 3.4 Annegret Solta~ Verletzung (1974) 3.5 Annegret Soltau, Se/bst (1975-6) 3.6 Annegret Solteu, Selbst 10 (1975) 3.7 Annegret Soltau, Demonstration (19.1.1976) 3.8 Annegret Soltau, Demonstration (22.1.1976) 3.9 Annegret Solta~Aktion 'Ver-Bindungen' (19.5.1976) 3.10 Faith Wilding, Womb Room (1972 and 1996) 3.11 Robert Rauschenberg, Bed (1955) 3.12 Annegret Soltau, Prdgedruck(1971) 3.13 Annegret Soltau, Oberzeichnele Frau (1972) 3.14 Annegret Soltau, Meine Verlorenen Haare (1977) 3.15 Annegret Soltau, Eingesponnene Schaufensterpuppe (1978) 3.16 Yoko Ono, Cut Piece (1964) 3.17 Piero Manzoni, Linea (1959) 3.18 Annegret Soltau, Ich; Bedruck: (1977-8) 3.19 Annegret Soltau, 1m G/eichgewichl (1980-1) 3.20 Annegret Soltau, Malerial-ZE1CHNUNG Spinne (1976-7) 3.21 Annegret Soltau, Schwanger (1977a) 3.22 Annegret Soltau, Schwanger (I 977b)