Bios

HAIR CLUB is an interdisciplinary, research-based art collective whose work is  centered around the multivalent topic of hair in culture. Co-founded by Suzanne  Gold, Kelly Lloyd, and Michal Lynn Shumate, HAIR CLUB is a platform for  discussion, dialogue, research, exhibition, and creative writing that was initially recognized by the Shapiro Center for Collaborative Research Grant (SAIC) in 2014 and grew under the auspices of the Propeller Fund Grant, a joint endeavor of Threewalls and Gallery 400 in Chicago, IL in 2015. HAIR CLUB has since expanded its research and methodological approach to narrativizing hair through the expansive, associative lens of culture (inclusive of art, literature, history, popular culture, identity, politics, and religion). We were recently invited to present our research at two major museum institutions: the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in 2019. Early in 2020, HAIR CLUB paneled at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, IL as part of “Material Stories: Hair,” an exhibition that presented the divisive and confounding hair-based work of Chinese artist Gu Wenda, among others. A chapter in the forthcoming volume Socially Engaged Art History: Alternative Approaches to the Theory and Practice of Art History (ed. Cindy Persinger & Azar Rejaye, Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) posits HAIR CLUB as a case study for socially-engaged art historical praxis and introduces the unique creative and inclusive methodology of the burgeoning interdisciplinary academic discipline of “Hair Studies.”

Suzanne Gold

Suzanne Gold is a writer and educator living in Baltimore, MD. In 2019, she presented her work and research at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.) and the Museum of Modern Art Salon series (NYC). Her book of poetry, ALLTALK, is forthcoming from Meekling Press (Chicago) in 2020.

Kelly Lloyd

Kelly Lloyd is an interdisciplinary conceptual artist living and working in London. In 2019, she completed the Starr Fellowship at the Royal Academy Schools, had solo exhibitions at the Royal Academy Schools (London), Crybaby (Berlin), Bill’s Auto (Chicago) and Dirty House (London); lectured at the University of Edinburgh and Oxford University; collaborated on public programming at rum 46 (Aarhus) and Raven Row (London); and was granted a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, the Art Licks Workweek Prize, and a Step Travel Grant.

Michal Lynn Shumate

Michal Lynn Shumate is an educator and researcher based in Bomarzo, Italy. Current projects focus on the domestic space of nineteenth-century Rome, including the restoration of medieval houses and the use of historicism in 1830s decorative programs. Michal Lynn worked, studied, and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Italy.