The Brown Bear: Neither Particular, Nor General

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

FREE body-hair modifications, Hair cuts, Fades, Do’s-for-a-day, Wigs-on-loan, Weaves, Small dye jobs, Body shaving, Armpit augmentation, Special requests encouraged!

On October 13, 2010, A.K. Burns and Katherine Hubbard will begin two months of work at Recess as part of its signature program, Session. Recess invites artists in Session to use its storefront space as studio, exhibition venue, and grounds for experimentation. During their first public collaboration, Burns and Hubbard will adapt Recess into a working installation that will intentionally conflate the hair and art salon. They consider the salon a site for public engagement. The Brown Bear is a space to gather, exchange ideas and generate personal aesthetics; a site to collectively explore, what does it look like? During public hours, visitors may come in to receive free body-hair modifications and add to the dialogue surveying the paradigms of appearance

In the artists words:

Leading with the question, what does it look like?, describing it is pivotal to formulating a response. It is The Brown Bear, a queer experience, the experience of ‘packing vag’, of being hirsute. For us, it is personal. This kind of personal is political, and this salon provides a space for the political to be public.

Drawing from our own experiences, feminist hysteries, and notions of queer aesthetics, we will build a social archive of ontological signifiers around the formation of self. The environment will operate like an exploded zine and visitors are invited to utilize the free Xerox machine. Additionally, Burns and Hubbard have created a series of sculptural head dressings that they will continue to produce and offer as wearable works on loan.

Every Saturday, The Brown Bear will reinvent itself during a curated salon, in which Burns and Hubbard invite another artist to cohabitate the storefront. Contributing artists at the Saturday salons are asked to challenge the privilege of sight when considering the question, what does it look like? Presentations will feature sound, literature, taste, smell and touch.

Session invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist’s project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.