Political and Protest Art
Exploring Identity in Art
Make sure you answer each question thoroughly and also make sure that you don’t skip ahead on questions! Some of these questions are meant to be answered in a specific order upon discovering more about the work.
1. Consider the image you chose from the module as a kind of portrait of a person. Create a list of adjectives to describe the person to whom the hair in the image belongs. Make assumptions based on the physical attributes you are viewing.
2. What other physical attributes might someone look at to make assumptions about people?
3. The image you chose is a small section of a larger body of art, which you will now look up. The work is called “Wigs” by Lorna Simpson. Describe what you see. How does the detail you looked at fit in the larger work?
5. Look closely at the hairpiece panels. What do you notice about the hair that is displayed? What colors, textures, and hairstyles do you see? Are there any that stand out as different from the others?
6. What is considered beautiful in images of people found in the popular media? What type of hair is considered beautiful? Do any of the wigs you see in the work adhere to this standard of beauty?
7. Does the installation (specimens displayed on a board with small pins) reminds you of anything else they have seen? If so, what? What does that do to your interpretation of the work?
8. Why do we, as a culture, classify people? Is the way we classify people different from classifying specimens in a museum? How do we use physical attributes to identify and classify people?
9. What identity is the artist exploring in this work? What cultural assumptions is the artist shedding light on? What do you think this work is about?
