Hairy stories (english Version)
Pablo Picasso's works often depict underarm, chest and intimate hair as well as thinning out hair of head or of the beard. These are all hair themes that today are often associated with feelings of shame or embarrassment. In order to advance the removal of taboos surrounding body hair, the Kunsthalle Bremen is launching an appeal on the occasion of the Picasso exhibition.
Whether back, chest, legs, armpits, eyebrows, upper lip or intimate area: shaving, epilating, plucking, waxing and sugaring is in - and that across all gender boundaries. Because today, hairy is equals bad, and shaved is equals good. What was not yet the norm in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s had long been common in the USA: An American study from 1964 found that 98% of all US women removed body hair. As a study by the University of Leipzig from 2016 shows, this trend has now also reached Germany: around 80% of women under 55 remove their underarm hair. Seven years earlier, it was around 12.5% less. Men are not spared from this trend: in 2016, over 35% of men under 55 removed their underarm hair, almost 15% more than seven years earlier. Study participants cite individual attractiveness and social normativity as reasons for body hair removal.
With the increasing standardisation of largely hairless bodies in Europe and the world, counter-movements are developing under the catchword of "body positivity", which encompasses a wide range: Underarm hair as a feminist setting, baldness in men as a sex symbol, baldness in women and the accompanying examination of female identity, the hairstyle diversity of PoC as empowerment, facial hair beyond gender norms as a marker of queer bodies and as a political statement, to name just a selection.
In order to promote the visibility of various movements and to advance the removal of taboos surrounding body hair, the Kunsthalle Bremen is launching an appeal on the occasion of the Picasso exhibition.
For Picasso, today's social norms played no role. Even in sketchy linocuts, Picasso did not omit body hair, which today is usually shaved off due to normative pressure. Rather, Picasso used hair as a means of expression with which he could convey complex emotional states but also erotic desire. With the upcoming exhibition "The Picasso Connection”, body hair is moving into the museum and at the same time taking up the discourse on representations of the human body.
Details on the call “Hairy Stories“
Until 31 January 2021, photos (max. 5 MB) of body hair can be submitted at [email protected]. Anything from bushy armpit hair to light head or beard hair to a lady's beard and hairs on the nose is permitted. Photos of primary sexual characteristics are excluded. In addition, related stories and thoughts should also be submitted. The texts should not exceed 1,000 characters with spaces.
A selection of photos and their stories will subsequently be presented in the new permanent exhibition "Remix 2020" in the Sculpture Hall. The Sculpture Hall is entitled "Images of the Human" (Bilder vom Menschen) and shows representations of the human body. In antiquity, body hair was depicted meticulously on sculptures, but the sculptures presented from the Bremen collection are from later periods and only show hair on the head. By adding photographs of body hair, the museum aims to broaden the discourse on (beauty) ideals in the representation of human bodies.
The exhibition “The Picasso-Connection” will open as soon as the museums are allowed to reopen.
Images:
Pablo Picasso, Woman Lying Down and Man with Large Hat, 1959, Color Linocut, Kunsthalle Bremen – Der Kunstverein in Bremen © Succession Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020
Photocollage: No Title, 2013, Photo: Eylül Aslan | Margitta, Photo: Private | Lara, 2020, Photo: Oliver Ahlbrecht | Marla, Photo: Nicole Benewaah
The Sculpture Hall of the Permanent Exhibition, Photos: Marcus Meyer