"The artwork for 2016's A Seat at the Table finds Solange paused mid-evolution. She's not quite ready for her close-up, yet she has invited us here anyway. Pastel duckbill clips are setting her hair in deep, chestnut waves. Her shoulders are bare. Her lips are gently parted, as though she might soon speak. ("Don't test my mouth," she'll soon warn us in a song full of cautions, the sweetness of her register undermining its threat.)"
"It will not: neither will reading, or drinking, or dancing, or a new dress. Solange, who was raised in her mother's salon, knows the ways her hair, her body, her being have indexed meanings she did not assign them. She knows these meanings will determine, to some incalculable degree, how the day will go, what ways her humanity will be denied, whether she'll make it home in one piece."
Solange will turn 40 and moves through a period of greater wisdom and persistent questions. She explores spirituality, embraces vulnerability, and claims the title performance artist while interrogating how hair, body, and image influence safety, perception, and artistic identity. The A Seat at the Table artwork presents her paused mid-evolution, an intimate, regal pose that invites close, imperfect engagement. Her upbringing in a mother's salon taught her how bodily markers carry imposed meanings that shape daily risk and dignity. She deliberately cultivates an up-close aesthetic that acknowledges grit, intensity, and necessary conversations while evolving creatively.
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