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DeLuxe

2004–05

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Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe, 2004–05 2006.340a-hhh

Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe, 2004–05. Mixed media, sixty images: 13 × 10 1/2 in. (33 × 26.7 cm) each; 84 1/2 × 179 in. (214.6 × 444.5 cm) overall. Edition no. 1/20. Printed and published by Two Palms Press, New York. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 2006.340a-hhh

Ellen Gallagher is interested in how people use beauty products to change their appearance and identities. To make DeLuxe, she used old magazine advertisements for products such as wigs, stockings, skin whitener, and hair straightening items. These ads promised transformations based on what was considered beautiful at the time—straight hair and light-colored skin. She found the ads in African-American magazines from the 1930s through the 1970s such as Ebony, Our World, Black Stars, and Sepia.

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What you’ll need

Magazines or newspapers, beads, gems, paint, glitter, glue

Ellen Gallagher uses old advertisements for things that people wear or put on their bodies, such as stockings, wigs, and other cosmetics products, and changes them by adding other materials to the original advertisement.

Find a paper advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, or print one out from online, that shows the head and/or body of a person.
Decide how you’d like to change that person’s appearance. Will you change their hair, eyes, face, body or mouth? How?
Think about what materials you could use. Gallagher uses beads, gems, paint, glitter, and other small items to change the original advertisements she uses.
You can draw, glue, or sculpt different materials onto your original image. Consider coloring over, erasing, or building out parts of your image to make them 3D.
Take a photograph of your final piece and share it with us!

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Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe, 2004–05 (detail)

At first, Gallagher was interested in the wig advertisements because the images were arranged in a neat grid. Later, she realized that she also really liked the old-fashioned language used to describe the products. For example, different wigs could transform a person into a “cutie” or “curly gypsy.”

Ellen Gallagher Gallagher’s page Works < >

DeLuxe

2004–05

Adding to Advertisements

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Ellen Gallagher Gallagher’s page
Works < >

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