Derrick Adams: LOOKS

The Cleveland Museum of Art

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• Date Sunday, January 30, 2022 - Sunday, May 29, 2022

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes almost 45,000 objects and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. Having recently completed an ambitious, multi-phase renovation and expansion project across... more

Hair and wigs carry cultural and political weight in Black culture, rendering them powerful tools for self-representation. Derrick Adams: LOOKS features nine monumental paintings of wigs on mannequin heads from the artist’s recent Style Variations series. Through his paintings, Adams aims to make the practice he refers to as “costuming,” or the desire to be unique and stand out, normal to the broader public.

Derrick Adams: LOOKS was jointly organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and Cleveland Clinic, marking the centennial of Cleveland Clinic.

Image Credit:
Style Variation 35, 2020. Derrick Adams (American, b. 1970). Acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, on Artex Canvas in custom gold-leafed frame 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York. © Derrick Adams