Hair
Hong Hao
洪浩
Production date
2002
Object Detail
Media
digital print
Measurements
framed 229 x 140 cm
Notes
In Hair (2002), a digital print more than two metres tall of the artist’s scanned hair, the mundane was similarly invested with significance. The collection of the hair over time, meticulously scanned and arranged on a white ground, dense and dark in the top right corner and paler and sparser towards the bottom, represents the passage of time, the days succeeding each other that make up a life. Organised across the surface of the print, in longer strands and shorter clippings, the hair creates an effect like an abstract painting; you begin to see it as calligraphic. Hong Hao sees the hair spread over the scanner as essentially the same as the other items he has selected and classified: a ‘non-spiritual substance’ just like packaged sweets, books or paper ephemera, his hair represents the physicality of existence and the repetition of daily life.
Accession number
2015.175