The Wig Project - cropped version of three channel video installation, 2004

The Wig Project - Voice Mail Messages -

Ken Solomon’s work explores the limitless range of interpretation of the same thing. Many faces: one wig was the basic idea behind The Wig Project. Over the last 4 years, through a relentless grass roots ad campaign, Ken Solomon has solicited complete strangers to model in the exact same (sanitized) wig for a headshot. 1,431 people ended up venturing to his studio to be photographed in 35 mm film, after seeing the numerous “I need Volunteers” posters of Photoshop manipulated pop icons (Where’s Waldo, the Brady Bunch or Britney Spears) plastered around Brooklyn. The resulting photographs pinned to the walls of the studio in a tight grid were used to create the subsequent 10 minutes three-channel video installation. The video documents the multitude of reactions of hundreds of characters unified behind the same Afro wig and mug shot format. Images shift from one face to another, a still portrait becomes progressively animated, faces appear and disappear to the rhythm of the recording of hundreds of phone messages people left in response to The Wig Project ad campaign.