Quadrennial Shaving Performance 40 Years After

(1984 – ongoing)

Every four years, on the same day (night), August 31^st Irina Danilova harvests her hair into the collection of braids. Hair as a timeline is the only physical manifestation of the human life span.

At the beginning it was a symbolic haircut in 1984 before leaving her native Kharkiv and Ukraine. After graduation from Kharkiv Academy of Art and Design, a symbolic cutting of hair (the length of the time spent at school) was performed by Irina’s friends, Lena Kudinova and Masha Gluschenko. When Irina inquired about Lena and Masha’s availability for a farewell celebration complete with a symbolic haircut, they selected the evening of August 31. Next day the cut hair was sold to the Parichok atelier for 3 rubles 20 kopeks, price of a kilogram of butter.

Later Irina realized that August 31 was the date of the influential Russian poet, Marina Tsvetaeva’s suicide in 1941. In Tsvetaeva’s honor initially a one-time symbolic haircut became a quadrennial performance and all the hair that grew since 1984 was saved in braids. 1984 was a leap and Olympic year. The next performance was scheduled for the next leap year, on August 31st with no haircuts in between. Thus, the lifelong project began. The tenth braid will be harvested this year.

Irina has now embarked on several lifelong projects, the oldest being the Quadrennial Shaving Performance and the only one that started in her native Kharkiv. Coincidentally, Linda Mary Montano’s first lifelong project, Seven Years of Living Art, began in the fall of 1984, soon after one-year Bound by a Rope performance with Tehching Hsieh (July 1983 – July 1984).

Hair as part of th human body has a historical collection of norms and taboos, from Buddhist monks’ depravation and a variety of religious prohibitions to social and aesthetic expectations. Quadrennial Shaving Performance is a feminist statement about the relation between identity and femininity. It is dedicated to all women who have lost their hair against their will, to all personal losses in general.

In 2004 Andrei Avdeenko hosted Irina Danilova’s Quadrennial Shaving Performance 20 Years After in Kharkiv at Palitra Gallery with Lena Kudinova and Masha Gluschenko’s participation.

Thirteen years later, on August 31, 2017, Kharkiv bid Lena Kudinova a final farewell. This time the Quadrennial Shaving Performance will be held at Municipal Gallery in her memory, in memory of lost friends.

This exhibition marks the return of the artist to the walls of the gallery, because in 2014 she organized the curatorial exhibition “Time of Fluxus” in the Municipal Gallery, and in 2015, Iryna Danilova already held a solo exhibition “Project 59” here.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As an interdisciplinary artist, I employ a variety of materials from everyday life, frequently found among discarded objects, with the intention of recycling them into artwork. My works range from single objects, two- and three-dimensional collages, to multimedia installations. They sample the environment, probe and investigate our culture, and transform the rejected items into objects of aesthetic values. Most of my works have a unifying theme or concept and many of them belong to a specific series. Working beyond a “canvas/easel” truism, staying away from traditional art materials, I experiment with alternative forms, places and processes. I am interested in exploration, transformation, salvaging, research, unique aspects and using scientific methods in art.

Article on Irina Danilova’s website, where you can learn more about the shaving performance that took place on August 31, 2024 in ARTbasement:

https://www.irinadanilova.net/Shaving2024.html

Artist’s website:

https://irinadanilova.net/

irinadanilovah@gmail.com

@project595959