Cover Story: Man of the People

It’s a humid July evening as I enter a downtown bar. I’m here to talk to local artist and filmmaker Kendall Bruns about his latest self-reflexive project, a documentary film called The Haircut.

Bruns, a multitalented 28-year-old whose head is dominated by a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, is already draining a High Life at the bar when I arrive. We grab a table and talk about his West Side roots.

His family moved around a lot — everywhere from the West Coast to England — before settling down in time for him to attend Oak Hills High School in Bridgetown. A BFA in sculpture from the Art Academy of Cincinnati followed, as did a variety of multimedia endeavors that explored his fascination with how the public perceives and interacts with art.

He speaks with an earnest, almost deadpan calm, a surprise given the seemingly ironic nature of some of his works. Bruns’ projects often employ an element of performance art, an approach that constantly throws his intent into question.

But one thing is clear: He yearns to create unique, unpredictable experiences, endeavors where both the artist and its recipient have a role to play. (My favorite example of this was the time he offered his services as an artist/therapist, complete with a couch-and-coffee-table setup, at SSNOVA.

He listened to peoples’ problems — including “sexual, physical, psychological & emotional issues” — via 10-mintue sessions.)

A Reds game blares from a TV behind the bar, often intruding on a conversation that touches a variety of topics — including his admiration for the eclectic musical evolution of The Fiery Furnaces — but the medium of film eventually comes to the forefront. Movie titles, actors and directors flow freely (he likes Paul Thomas Anderson a lot), and I learn he once worked as a projectionist at a local second-run movie theater.

His interest in film is no surprise — it’s the art form most in tune with his multimedia approach. In an effort to further explore this burgeoning interest, Bruns and Josh Flowers founded Pizza Infinity, a shoestring video production company they use as an outlet for their various filmic efforts.

The duo’s playful shorts have graced the screens of such entities as Underneath Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Film Society and the 48 Hour Film Festival. (They recently won “Best Picture” at the Chicago 48 hour fest for their short All Two of Us, another comic adventure of seemingly surreal intent.)

The Haircut is a typical Bruns vehicle, one that incorporates his two favorite subjects: the public and Kendall Bruns (I mean that in the best possible way). The premise is simple, penned by the man himself: “Contestants will create proposals for Kendall’s next haircut. Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges, a winner will be chosen, and then Kendall will receive … The Haircut.”

The contest was initiated almost by accident.

“I was constantly getting people telling me to cut my hair because I was sort of growing it out not knowing what to do with it,” Bruns says by phone a few days later. “I was interested in how everybody had opinions and how they were making suggestions about my hair. I was also interested in the fact that I had basically the same haircut for the first twentysomething years of my life when really there are a million possibilities out there.”

Bruns saw it as yet another of his art-based sociology experiments.

“I started thinking a lot about why I had the hairstyle that I had, and why anybody has the hairstyle that they have: aesthetics or convenience or determining if it’s a sociological thing,” he says. “And I’ve done a lot of artwork that was interactive with the public, so that’s kind of how it came into being a contest.”

The lighthearted, surprisingly suspenseful, sometimes insightful 36-minute film comes off like a well-oiled episode of a reality television program. The connection is no accident.

“I was making some sort of commentary on reality television, because it’s just sort of overwhelmed the television schedule,” Bruns says. “A lot times they’re very superficial, appearance-based shows where they do makeovers, which is very close to the haircut idea. I was interested in the fact that they set up this narrative of a person being unhappy and that through this reality television contest they’re going to end up happy. I guess there’s this promise that it’s going to change your life. But does it really?”

The Haircut features interviews with many people in Bruns’ life at the time of its 2004 filming: coworkers, contestants, friends and even his mom, who’s one of the five judges. Bruns delivers several face-the-camera interviews where he discusses and shares the various entries, which range from conventional to conceptual to totally ludicrous. Liberty spikes were a big hit, as were cuts of the “messy” and “choppy” variety. (Personally, I would have loved to see him get the “The Woody Allen.”)

In one of the film’s more intriguing interviews, local art writer and curator Sue Spaid talks about her fascination with the often life-altering experience of getting one’s hair cut.

“Haircutting is the job, of any job in the world — except for people who fix cars, maybe — that really makes a difference,” she says with complete seriousness. “I could sit for hours waiting for my haircut because I’m so fascinated by what people look like when they go in and what they look like when they come out. I think, ‘Wow, for 15 minutes of someone’s life, they can totally change their life and make them seem a little spunkier or fresh or happy or whatever.’ ”

Spaid goes on to discusses her entry in the contest, which involves a bit of chance.

“I’m more interest in seeing a haircut that I’ve never seen before,” she says. “You can always look better, but you can’t always have the conceptual haircut.”

Conversely, Bruns’ hair stylist Kimie Pitrelli voices concern about the contest’s more radical entries — she has to deliver the winning cut.

“One of the last things a hair stylist wants is for their client to look like a jackass,” she says. “You have a person come in completely feeling like ass; you give ’em a good haircut, (and) suddenly they have a smile.”

Which brings us to the contest’s central dilemma: Should it reward the best-looking entry? Or should it celebrate the most interesting conceptual idea? It’s a question Bruns leaves to the judges.

“I went into the project not knowing at all what kind of submissions people were going to send in, and all the way through I had no idea what the judges were finally going to pick,” Bruns says. “I was committed to do whatever got chosen. Some of the submissions were, you know, I would remove part of my skull so you could see my brain. I’m sure that would have to have been approached from a maybe not quite as literal a way.

“I obviously wasn’t going to do something that would kill me.”

This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2006.