At the Gagosian gallery in New York City, artist Deana Lawson is presenting a photography exhibition titled Edge Control, which utilizes imagery captured by hidden cameras in beauty supply stores to investigate themes of power, personhood, and racial identity.
The show’s title carries a dual significance. While edge control refers to the gels and pomades commonly used by Black women to style hair along the hairline, Lawson expands the term to critique the beauty industry and consumer culture. It also serves as a lens through which to examine the intersection of surveillance and race.
The conceptual framework of the exhibition draws upon writer and philosopher bell hooks’ essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators. In her work, hooks argues that for Black individuals, the act of looking has historically been a traumatic experience rooted in slavery. During that era, Black people were often subjected to constant surveillance, and looking back at their oppressors could result in severe punishment, including lynching.
Despite these dangers, hooks notes that Black individuals rebelled by secretly observing white people and their surroundings, thereby rejecting the white gaze as the sole framework for reality. She suggests that one can “interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see.” Lawson’s work evokes this analysis by turning the surveillance camera back on the structures of observation itself.
The exhibition is currently on view at the Gagosian in New York City and will remain open until October 24.
Reminded me of bell hooks’ work. Have others seen ‘The Oppositional Gaze’? It frames this exhibition perfectly.
The title ‘Edge Control’ works on so many levels. Hair care as both personal ritual and site of resistance. Powerful concept.
Does the Gagosian setting undercut the radical political message? Seems odd to display stolen surveillance footage in a luxury gallery.
I had no idea beauty supply stores used hidden cameras like this. It’s creepy yet fascinating how she repurposes it.
The connection between surveillance and the Black female gaze is brilliant. Lawson really challenges how we view each other.