Identity Shirt, first generation
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- Identity Shirt, first generation
- 1969
- stitched drawing with sewing machine on textile
- 54,9 × 68 cm
Ana Lupaș’ textile works function as a vessel of the body, where manifold stories are inscribed and projected. Her “Identity Shirts” can be seen as ID cards with personal traces in the sense of a Surrealist “écriture automatique” or automatic writing. The shirts from the “first generation” are pieces of black fabric on which the artist intervened with a sewing machine and by hand, using traces of pencil, ink blood and cloth tearing. Altogether, there are three generations of “identity shirts,” the first of which comes close to textile objects. The second generation resembles coats which are displayed like paintings, while the third generation of shirts functions like installations. All of them emphasize the identity of the individual vis-á-vis man-made progress and forced industrialization as well as mechanization. Lupaș tackles the moment of serialization with a more human approach, yet tries to adhere to recurring motifs and gestures.