A set of sixty sculptural, individually framed mixed-media prints, Ellen Gallagher’s DeLuxe is a technical and cultural tour de force. Though dated 2004-05, the monumental portfolio was at least a decade in the making, born out of ideas and magazine clippings the artist collected as she reflected on race, gender, and identity. Using vintage advertisements aimed at an African American audience, Gallagher created this series of powerful collages, which challenge Western beauty ideals and take aim at the Eurocentric standards imposed on African American consumers. The advertisements, pulled from sources such as 1930s and 70s editions of Ebony and Sepia, endorse various products for both men and women, ranging from skin-lightening agents to undergarments. Working alongside Two Palms Press, Gallagher altered the narrative of the advertisements, using printmaking and embossing, and even a tattoo machine, to create new images upon which she added Plasticine, gold leaf, and more. Completely transformed, the advertisements now provoke conversations regarding race and identity formation while evoking nostalgia.

Given the importance of hair as a signifier and a transformative tool, there is a particular emphasis on pomades and wigs. According to the artist, “as I began looking through [the advertisements], the wig ads themselves had such a language to them – so worldly – that referred to other countries, La Sheba…this sort of lost past” (Gallagher cited in Art Intelligence, 6 June 2007). The frames which address hair explore its ornamental and protective properties, while also addressing the physical and emotional weight carried by African Americans who have long faced societal pressures to alter their natural hair. An aged advertisement for Johnson’s Ultra Wave, for instance, boasts that the hair straightener “will make you really proud of your hair,” and exclaims, “Yes sir! You’ll find that Johnson’s Ultra Wave not only straightens your hair, it ‘culture-grooms’ it.” In response, Gallagher has armed the model with an elaborate Plasticine headpiece which partially masks his face, transforming him into a superhero who is impervious to such outrageous statements.

Currently on view at Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries, the present work, hung in a grid five high by twelve across as called for by the artist, is one of only twenty examples of DeLuxe. Other examples from the edition are housed in distinguished public collections and can be found at the Tate Modern, London, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, and Studio Museum of Harlem, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and The Eli Broad Foundation in Santa Monica.