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Artist/Maker
Alison Saar
(American, born 1956)
Printer
Tandem Press, Madison, WI
Date2021
MediumScreen print, acrylic spray paint, and gloss varnish on aluminum tin
DimensionsOverall: 18 1/2 in. × 18 1/2 in. × 2 in. (47 × 47 × 5.1 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, The Wynant J. Williams '35 Art Collection Fund
Object number2022.10
On view
DescriptionAlison Saar’s Congolene Resistance is meant to resemble the top of a tub of Congolene, a hair relaxer popular with Black men between the 1920s and the 1960s. However, the figure in Saar’s image proudly boasts “stubborn and kinky” natural hair while biting down on a hot comb. In mimicking a product that was used to tame natural hair, Saar instead creates a badgelike symbol of defiance. For Saar, the daughter of acclaimed assemblage artist Betye Saar and art conservator Richard Saar, natural hair is a crucial element of her identity as a biracial woman. Several of her works consequently depict natural hair as a response to racism and sexism.
Collections
Additional Details
Provenance
2022: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by purchase from Tandem Press, Madison, WI.
Signature
Signed by the artist on bottom outside edge of the aluminum tin.
Jeffrey Gibson
Date: 2019
Medium: Digital print, silkscreen, and collage, with gloss varnish, in custom-color frame
Object number: 2020.3.1
Jeffrey Gibson
Date: 2019
Medium: Digital print, silkscreen, and collage, with gloss varnish, in custom-color frame
Object number: 2020.3.2
Renée Stout
Date: 2008-10
Medium: Acrylic, latex paint, spray paint, plastic rhinestones, wood, glass, metal, varnish, collage, and found objects
Object number: 2016.2
Karl Blossfeldt
Date: 1929
Medium: Rotogravure
Object number: 2009.2.2
Graham Sutherland
Date: 1946
Medium: Double-sided painting: ink and gouache (recto); gouache (verso) on board
Object number: 1991.217a-b