Devan Shimoyama brings his barbershop installation to Serlachius in Finland.
Fade Cut 23 March–18 August 2024
From the Serlachius Museum:
Artist Devan Shimoyama’s exhibition Fade Cut is a colourful barbershop that combines his personal experiences with popular culture imagery and art history influences. The exhibition, which opens at Serlachius on 23 March, is the artist’s debut in Finland and the Nordic countries.
The art of Devan Shimoyama’s (b. 1989) is rich and playful. With a carnivalesque touch, he combines in his works different techniques and adds to them sequins, feathers and rhinestones. He also creates monumental installations. In his art, Shimoyama explores themes of sexuality, race and gender. He reflects on queer identity, incorporating references from mythology and art history. To all this, he open-mindedly connects the imagery of popular culture and the world of advertising.
The barbershop installation illustrates the artist’s personal experiences from childhood. They combine memories of an African-American barbershop and, on the other hand, female family members carefully adorning themselves for Sunday churchgoings in a Baptist congregation.
African-American barbershops have been places where black American men have been able to gather freely together. However, within the culture, those belonging to a minority have not necessarily experienced this hypermasculine atmosphere as their own. In the Fade Cut installation, the artist has transformed a barbershop into a rich and colourful queer fantasy. His barbershop is a safe space where every visitor is invited to express themselves freely. The works of the barbershop series are portraits about boys and men that challenge traditional gender roles. Distressing memories of the artist’s own childhood are reflected in the tears on the faces of the customers seen in the works. Even so, in his art, the artist turns painful experiences into joy.
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