Rinse & Repeat
Space: Mom’s Gallery / 67 Morton St. 5B
New York, NY 10014
Role: Curator
Dates: Nov. 17 - Dec. 16, 2018
Artists: Alexa Cabrera, Judy Chung, Brittney Najar, Lauren Patrick, and Albany Valerie Andaluz
Materials: Rinse & Repeat Digital Catalog
Rinse & Repeat is a group exhibition of contemporary works that reflects on the stigmatization of women's body hair and the complicated ways in which women's hair is linked to both pride and shame. The exhibition title refers to common directions found on shampoo bottles, while also referring to the un-questioned and repeated ways in which societal norms police women's bodies by labeling certain exposures, styles, and conversations of hair as inappropriate, distasteful, or embarrassing. Rinse & Repeat features five female-identifying artists: Alexa Cabrera, Judy Chung, Brittney Najar, Lauren Patrick, and Albany Valerie Andaluz.
For many women, the shame associated with having hair is deeply personal and, in many ways, inherited from maternal-figures, role models, and cultural icons. The ever-present image of smooth, hairless skin and sleek, straight hairstyles in popular culture and the mass media reinforces a social mandate that demands women to alter their bodies, sometimes at great financial and physical cost, to achieve an ideal of beauty that is unrealistic and unattainable for most women. Rinse & Repeat uses the universality of these ideals to interrogate social expectations and falsehoods within the gallery space, creating a place to celebrate, cherish, and challenge one another in the ways we critique our appearances.
Audience members are encouraged to explore these notions of shame and societal expectations by contemplating their relationships with their own bodies through the lens of beauty standards— particularly those associated with hair— body hair, hair texture, hair removal, cultural hairstyles, etc.
Rinse & Repeat is funded by a Kickstarter campaign which raised almost double the initial fundraising goal. Thank you to the generous donations from all of our backers. Follow this link to see our completed campaign: https://kck.st/2DkrugB
Photographs by Max Hernandez-Webster
Visual Identity & Communications Design by Tasnima Tanzim