The Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA Taipei), opened an exhibition on Saturday featuring artworks by 14 hair designers and stylists from neighboring salons in an unusual partnership with nearby businesses.
The month-long event called “Hair Design with No Hair” is the first of a three-part community exhibition project. It will be followed by a display featuring auto parts stores in the neighborhood. The content of the third exhibition has not been decided yet.
Since 2008, there have been 27 exhibitions held at the museum, but the museum had never cooperated with neighboring businesses until now.
Photo: CNA
“We hope to make good use of this underground space, and this time we have combined the resources of art, culture and the local private sector,” museum executive director Shih Jui-jen (石瑞仁) said.
The venue of the exhibition is within walking distance of the MRT Zhongshan Station, where many individual hair salons are located.
Although the 14 hair designers and stylists can be considered artists, most of them have never created their own work of art, unless you count styling customers’ hair.
The hair stylists said creating art is difficult enough, not to mention doing so without any hair — the medium they are most familiar with. However, they acknowledged that the process of creating also inspired them in their regular jobs.
Among the works at the exhibition is My Style of Future — one of five large-scale works on display.
Using the concept of yin and yang as well as the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) in ancient Chinese cosmology, stylist Lisa Chen uses abstract installation art to convey the idea of environmental protection and a wholesome concept of the universe.
However, Take Wings, an artwork using pages and pictures from old issues of magazines to form “feathered” hair, may be the most eye-catching piece to most visitors. Spectators can lengthen the hair by folding paper cranes, which the art creator will later include in the work.
A series of activities has also been scheduled to attract more crowds to the exhibition, including one in which free hairstyling advice will be given, as well as a souvenir giveaway, the organizers said.
The exhibition will run until June 26.
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