Gender and art

Ellen Gallagher, Bird in Hand, 2006 (detail).

"With "Ellen Gallagher: AxME" Haus der Kunst presents the work of African-American artist Ellen Gallagher whose visual language is based on three cornerstones: the struggle over colonies with the formation of the modern world; the conceptual accomplishments of the arts in the 1960s and 1970s; and the notion of the archive as a dialectical linking of form and content. Previous presentations which concentrated on different concepts of emerging modernity included "Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life", as well es monographic shows with works by Kendell Geers and Ivan Kožariã, on display in 2013.

As the first major solo exhibition of the artist's work, the exhibition provides a unique opportunity to explore her twenty-year career, exploring the themes which have emerged and recurred from her seminal early canvases, through to recent bodies of work. The exhibition includes such key works as "DeLuxe", 2004-5, "Bird in Hand", 2006, a complex relief built up in layers of printed matter, plasticine, crystal, paint and gold leaf, and selected paintings from her black and yellow series, "Moon-Glo", 2010, and "Pomp-Bang", 2003."

Ellen Gallagher - AxME

Haus der Kunst, Munich

28.02-13.07.14

http://www.hausderkunst.de/

"Ellen Gallagher is one of the most acclaimed contemporary artists to have emerged from North America since the mid-1990s. Her gorgeously intricate and highly imaginative works are realised with a wealth of virtuoso detail and wit. This is her first major solo exhibition in the UK, providing the first ever opportunity to explore an overview of her twenty-year career.

Gallagher brings together imagery from myth, nature, art and social history to create complex works in a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, relief, collage, print, sculpture, film and animation. The exhibition explores the themes which have emerged and recurred in her practice, from her seminal early canvases through to recent film installations and new bodies of work.

In her series of wig-map grid collages, Double Natural, POMP-BANG, and eXelento, Gallagher has appropriated and incorporated found advertisements for hair and beauty products from the 1930s to the late 1970s from publications such as Ebony, Our World, and Black Stars. These advertisements fostered ideals in black beauty through wigs and hair adornments, which Gallagher has then recontextualised,..."

Ellen Gallagher : AxME

Tate Modern, London, until 1 September 2013