The Three-Headed Girl: A Comprehensive List of Everything That Will Try to Kill You on a Sunday, or, The Three Headed Girl Knows Exactly How to Stay Alive
Vanessa German
American, born 1976

Details
Title
The Three-Headed Girl: A Comprehensive List of Everything That Will Try to Kill You on a Sunday, or, The Three Headed Girl Knows Exactly How to Stay Alive
Artist/Maker
Vanessa German (American, born 1976)
Date
2018
Medium
Mixed media assemblage
Dimensions
72 x 24 x 24 inches
Credit
Purchase with Folk Art Acquisition Fund
Accession #
2019.198
Vanessa German is an artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is known for her community-based social practice and mixed media sculptures dedicated to the empowerment of black women. Her often life-size sculptures draw on a wide array of found material and are based on traditional Congolese Nkisi Power Figure sculptures, which create protection, fend off evil spirits, and punish wrongdoers. This sculpture is part of a series of work she made for an exhibition at the Carl Hammer Gallery titled, Things Are Not Always What They Seem: A Phenomenology of Black Girlhood. Art historian Anita Bateman has observed the following of the specific objects German chose for this and other sculptures in the series : "Clocks, mirrors, birds, and other tchotchkes are repeating motifs throughout this body of work, perhaps symbolizing the delicacy of a childhood denied—or lost time—as black girls are perceived as being older and less innocent than their white counterparts."
Image Copyright
© (c) Vanessa German
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