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Untitled (Shirt)
Artist
Orit Raff
(Israeli, born 1970)
Date1997
MediumChromogenic print
DimensionsImage: 39 1/4 x 31 1/2 in. (99.7 x 80.01 cm)
Sheet: 46 1/2 x 38 1/2 in. (118.11 x 97.79 cm)
Framed: 47 3/4 x 39 5/8 x 1 7/8 in. (121.29 x 100.65 x 4.76 cm)
Sheet: 46 1/2 x 38 1/2 in. (118.11 x 97.79 cm)
Framed: 47 3/4 x 39 5/8 x 1 7/8 in. (121.29 x 100.65 x 4.76 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Friends of Art Endowment Fund
Object number2014.36
Status
Not on viewCopyright© Orit Raff
Category
Label TextIn her photography, as well as her performance and video works, Orit Raff fragments, distorts, and dislocates her subjects to interrupt our perceptions and subtly suggest new questions. Untitled (Shirt) takes as its subject the front of a pressed button-down shirt. Nearly invisible white-on-white stripes parallel the precisely centered placket, along which three white buttons stake equidistant claims. A few slightly off-kilter stripes, wrinkling near the buttonholes, and a loose thread dangling from the bottom button disrupt the machine-made precision of the fabric’s weave and the photographer’s meticulous composition and lighting.
The gleaming white, mass-produced perfection of the wardrobe staple recalls the formal qualities of Minimalism and the consumer-goods fetish of Pop art. Minimalism and Pop art sought distance from the passion of Abstract Expressionism, and both movements critiqued, directly or indirectly, the emotional manipulations of an increasingly commercial culture. In Untitled (Shirt), though, the stark landscape gradually fills with sentiment as the banal marker of domesticity activates personal histories. The details of the photograph emerge, and intimate and highly individual associations of a crisp white shirt cascade forth: the chore of laundry and ironing, the smell of bleach or the rush of steam, the tactility of soft cloth, the pleasure of donning a fresh shirt, the annoyance of needing to replace a button. A simple white square, abstracted from its usual surroundings, becomes a minimalist composition imbued with emotion.
The gleaming white, mass-produced perfection of the wardrobe staple recalls the formal qualities of Minimalism and the consumer-goods fetish of Pop art. Minimalism and Pop art sought distance from the passion of Abstract Expressionism, and both movements critiqued, directly or indirectly, the emotional manipulations of an increasingly commercial culture. In Untitled (Shirt), though, the stark landscape gradually fills with sentiment as the banal marker of domesticity activates personal histories. The details of the photograph emerge, and intimate and highly individual associations of a crisp white shirt cascade forth: the chore of laundry and ironing, the smell of bleach or the rush of steam, the tactility of soft cloth, the pleasure of donning a fresh shirt, the annoyance of needing to replace a button. A simple white square, abstracted from its usual surroundings, becomes a minimalist composition imbued with emotion.