museum | hair

Hair in African Art in Culture was organized by the Museum for African Art in New York and co-curated by Roy Sieber and Frank Herreman. It brought together over 170 objects including photographs, paintings, advertising boards, masks, pins, headrests and even an actual Ghanaian barbershop.

To illustrate the enormous significance of hair within African culture, the exhibition explored seven ways in which hair has special meaning: as an indicator of social status and religious function, a symbol of age and authority, a traditional aesthetic element, a statement of contemporary style, a substance with supernatural power and religious import, and as an object of beauty and adornment.

The exhibition included many objects relating to contemporary African and African American hairstyles that pointed up intriguing cross-cultural influences.

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