Shih Yung-Chun, Braid Cabinet, 2019. Courtesy: the artist, White Rabbit, Sydney, Hive Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China, and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.

Hair Pieces explores the evocative and complex significance of hair in contemporary culture through a selection of recent Australian and international works of art.

For millennia hair has been a resonant and compelling site of meaning, transmitting ideas about gender, mythology, status and power, the body, psychology, feminism and notions of beauty.  At once radiant and repellent, and often richly symbolic, it has always assumed a particular importance in relation to the self, history and society. This exhibition examines the myriad ways in which artists utilise hair to investigate and conjure generative and even magical possibilities encompassing growth, empowerment and transformation.

Exhibited artists include Marina Abramović  and Ulay, Janine Antoni, Georgia Banks, Polly Borland, Sonia Boyce, Christina May Carey, Sadie Chandler, Edith Dekyndt, Karla Dickens, Jim Dine, Peter Ellis, Tarryn Gill, Mona Hatoum, Zhang Chun Hong, Lou Hubbard, Jiang Jian, Nusra Latif Qureshi, John Meade, Ana Mendieta, Hayley Millar Baker, S.J Norman, J.D ‘Okhai Ojeikere, Patricia Piccinini, Wes Placek, C. J Pyles, Chuxiao Qu, Julie Rrap, Charlie Sofo and Debris Facility, Christian Thompson, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Helen Wright, Ai Yamaguchi, Shih Yung-Chun, Louise Weaver.