Crazy Bald Britney Spears: The Appeal Of The Loss Of Desirability

February 16, 2007. A troubled but charismatic young woman walked into a salon on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles. After a brief chat with a stylist, the woman sat and began to shave her own head, and thus was born one of the most enduring memes of the ensuing 16 years.

Images of the bald Britney Spears are iconic in the modern world. They speak to our taste for the absurd and force us to grapple with the value of beauty and celebrity. They showcase our inability to look away from an utter fiasco and yet somehow manage to inspire us on our hardest days. They need no explanation: We can clearly see in them both the human emotion and the inhuman machine of celebrity culture. They force us to question the morality of the predatory paparazzi and equally to ask where our own breaking point might be. We've all stared into Britney's delirious eyes above her plastic, practiced smile. But you haven't truly experienced the depth of the image until now.

From a photo taken by Frank Griffin of the prestigious Bauer-Griffin photo agency—better known as the infamous Hollywood Hunt Club—XVALA presents Crazy Bald Britney Spears: The Appeal of the Loss of Desirability.

In the early 21st century, the world of entertainment media was changing at an astonishing speed. Around 2005, early mobile phone cameras were starting to produce good quality images. YouTube also launched in 2005, providing a place for visual media to be shared more widely, and by more people than ever before. And at the same time, internet culture and Hollywood were beginning to collide as Perez Hilton and TMZ both debuted in 2005. Suddenly, cameras were everywhere, images and videos were easily shared, and society seemed poised to devour celebrity-related content. It should come as no surprise that Britney's bald head went entirely viral in 2007. In 2008, The Atlantic said, "It is hard to overstate the impact of these photos on the Britney story."

In June of 2020, Elon Musk famously tweeted, "Who controls the memes/Controls the universe". Every person who had a part in putting these images in front of you has influenced your destiny in some way. The paparazzi who captured them, the brokers who controlled their distribution, and the media outlets that delivered them have changed your thoughts forever. You can never unsee the images, unthink the thoughts, or unfeel the emotions. And now you have arrived at this place and time to consume an even more powerful version of the story.

And what masters of your mental universe have delivered this version to you? From Frank Griffin's original photo, XVALA commissioned the technicians at Bowhaus of Los Angeles to perfect and print the life-size image on a sheet of archival aluminum dibond. From there, he had the print framed by Bernard Vandeuren and the other artisans at Vandeuren Galleries in Los Angeles. The frame was hand-sculpted in an Italian tabernacle style and features a pair of cherubs at the top and flowers around the sides and base. The frame is 23" x 21" x 4 " and is decorated in polychrome, touched with bits of 18 kt lemon gold leaf and 12 kt white gold leaf.

XVALA has exhibited this work in major cities across the United States and is proud to bring it to the Billion Dollar Meme$ exhibit.