Several ways to wear father’s shirt

Fotoprints auf 27 Karteikarten, Gummiband, 2011

Notizen / Notes
Übersetzung: Beate Terfloth

1. The parcel was selected for its haptic quality: soft content.
2. Upon opening of parcel, immediately visible, that it is a blue shirt.
3. Observing more closely: shirt is quite large, sleeves have been cut off, in the chest-area paper clips and coins have been sewn in. On the breast pocket the initials DML have been embroidered -> Daniel M. Lynch? Closer observation of the brand. -> Are the sewn-in objects meant to be taken out? I don’t think so, because one can feel what objects they are. Also it would be too big an intervention on the piece. -> Is it the shirt of Daniel Lynch or does it belong to somebody else? (- again I am thinking about the embroidered initials.) -> Does he fit into it?
4. Shirt is lying at home, resp. I hung it up. -> Let it just be there – so far no precise involvement with it.
5. Google search: whom do I find when I look for Daniel Lynch, resp. Daniel M. Lynch? -> Name appears in the context of Harvard, but also in other connections. Daniel M. Lynch finally leads me to the homepage of a marketing guy. Photo: grey hair, portly built, successfull appearance, correctly dressed.
   HE WOULD FIT PERFECTLY INTO THAT SHIRT.
   -> Seems improbable that he is the Daniel Lynch from whom I received the parcel. HIS FATHER?
6. I stick with the association that it is his father’s shirt (of course I can’t be sure) -> Paper clips, money in the breast pocket: work and money/luxury as his primary values? -> Cut off sleeves: insufficient attention, neglected fatherly care? -> An accusation of the father? Judgement on his values? The piece suddenly acquires a very emotional character for me.
7. Shirt is still hanging in my room. Only a few days later I put it on. As soon as I am wearing it, I know what my reply will be.
8. -> I wear it in different ways. That produces different emotional feelings, which could be associated with: e.g. restriction, burden, defiance, irony, humour, acceptance, obedience, protest, anger, wit, distance, sadness, self-confidence, shyness, despair, indifference, aquiescence, rage, sarcasm, contentedness, self-sufficiency, escape, hiding, … resp. even more subtle processes that are difficult to put into words. -> Photographed myself in different positions wearing shirt. Cut out the photographs and pasted them onto index cards, that could be put into the breast pocket.
   TITLE: resulted from this action.
   “SEVERAL WAYS TO WEAR FATHER’S SHIRT”