Labor

A few years ago in NYC, I got it in my head to do this weird art project/political statement. I can't remember now where the idea originated, but the following is a brief explanation of how this T-shirt came to be. At the time and ever since my friend Ari told me and has always told me that I don't give my art and in turn my viewers enough credit, because I always want to explain my intentions, so I will not do that here in this post or with this photograph. I will simply tell you how I created the piece.

I needed labels or tags from clothing that was made overseas. Easy right? Almost all of our clothes are made overseas, but I wanted to see how many I could get, so I created an ad on Craigslist asking for people's tags. Funny now in the age of social networks to think that Craigslist was my space of choice. I was just curious to see who would find the add, take the time to cut the tags from the clothes, and actually mail them to a compete stranger for no real reason at all.

Within a few days the tags began to pour in. I must have received 100 tags by ten to twenty different people. Envelopes full of them kept showing up. Next I took an old t-shirt and had the word Labor printed across the chest. I wanted to sew each label on myself, but irony of all ironies I didn't have the time or the skill set to do so. I took them to a local tailor near West 108th street. He and his entourage thought I was crazy, but followed my instructions to the tee.

I have only worn the shirt a few times, but receive curious looks every time. Here it is on my dining room table:

Illustrate one of the various meanings of the word tag today in a photograph.

So you tell me, what do you think it means?