"At this time in my life, I’m ready to accept or own a kind of romance and melancholy or melodrama that I wasn’t ready to reveal before. It was always there in my inner life as an artist, but I was too afraid to share it."
"eXelento" (2004)
"eXelento," 2004
Plasticine, ink and paper on canvas, 96 x 192 inches
The Eli Broad Family Foundation, Santa Monica, CA
Photo by Robert McKeever
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York
Plasticine, ink and paper on canvas, 96 x 192 inches
The Eli Broad Family Foundation, Santa Monica, CA
Photo by Robert McKeever
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York
"I’ve collected archival material from black photo journals from 1939 to 1972, looking at magazines like ‘Our World,’ ‘Sepia,’ and ‘Ebony.’ Initially I was attracted to the magazines because the wig advertisements had a grid-like structure that interested me. But as I began looking through them, the wig ads themselves had such a language to them- so worldly- that referred to other countries, La Sheba...this sort of lost past."
- Ellen Gallagher
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