Untitled
Francis Alÿs
Belgian, born 1959
2002
A single neatly folded pale-blue dress shirt sealed in a clear plastic sleeve, presented as an artwork to make us look anew at a familiar domestic object and the systems that surround it.
It reads like a dry‑cleaned relic—crisp collar and button placket flattened under crinkled, glossy plastic so the shirt becomes a small, sterile rectangle at once ordinary and preserved.
By isolating a common garment in its commercial packaging, Alÿs channels the readymade and conceptual traditions to expose the everyday entanglements of domestic labor, commerce, and bureaucratic containment.
Medium
Folded blue shirt in plastic sleeve
Dimensions
Component (Folded blue shirt in plastic sleeve): 14 1/2 x 9 3/4" (36.8 x 24.8 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of The Speyer Family Foundation, Kathy and Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, The Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf, and Committee on Media Funds
Accession
208.2007.5
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
