Now on view at the LINE LA through April 30th: Dana’s Beauty Supply ~with care~. With this latest iteration of her experimental beauty supply store, artist Dana Davenport creates spaces for Black and Asian solidarity while servicing beauty needs, reimagining the beauty supply as a space for community, creativity, and critical dialogue.
Exploring modes of care within Black and Korean communities, Davenport’s two-month residency at the hotel features programming to foster community where folks can have progressive conversations around the beauty supply industry, its history, and the tensions that exist within it while envisioning a future with solidarity at the forefront.
Founded in 2021 by Korean and Black artist Dana Davenport, Dana’s Beauty Supply is an experimental installation and research project that reimagines the beauty supply as a space for critical dialogue, solidarity, and creativity while servicing the beauty needs of the community. More than 70 percent of all beauty supply stores that cater to Black and Brown communities in the US are Korean-owned. It is through this lens that we explore the potential for cross-cultural connection.
Find the store installation in our lobby-level pop-up space adjacent to the gallery and seating area, where hang a set of Davenport’s box braid chandeliers.
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“I consider the implications of these materials as they sit on the beauty supply shelf and how they are activated in the hands of Black folks through love and labor,” Davenport says. “By tethering the objects to their source, I’m creating a visual language around Black and Asian solidarity while turning to the beauty supply as my source of inspiration.”
Dana Davenport (b.1994) is a Korean and Black-American interdisciplinary artist raised in Seoul, South Korea, and based between Los Angeles and Brooklyn. Her work shifts between installation, sculpture, video, and performance. Within her practice, she addresses the complexities that surround inter-minority conflict as a foundation for envisioning her own and the collective futurity of Black and Asian peoples. Davenport’s work has been shown throughout the United States and internationally including Gibney Dance, New York, NY; Watermill Center, Water Mill, NY; NYU Skirball, New York, NY; Brown University, Providence, RI; Recess Art, Brooklyn, NY; and Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, AUS, to name a few. Davenport was selected for the 2023 Bandung Residency with MoCADA and Asian American Arts Alliance and the 2021 Recess Session Residency. Davenport was awarded the 2023 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship from the Center for Craft.
