T-Shirt: Cult Culture Subversion

Surprisingly interesting exhibition looking at the role of the T-shirt in popular culture.

The show was arranged in 12 installations looking at various themes plus there was a useful timeline as you came in displays on T-shirt shaped hangers on a rail. The show defined a T-shirt as a T shaped garment so listed the earliest found as AD 500.

I was most interested in some of the odd facts and figures in the show such as the first university shirt was from 1932 which was made as an under garment for a football team which had the university logo on them to stop people steeling them, but it had the opposite effect. Also that the first promotional shirt was for the Wizard Of Oz and the first use of the word was in “This Side of Paradise” by Scott Fitzgerald in 1920.

The themes covered subjects such as fashion as a communication tool, collecting T-shirts and band T-shirts, which started as a uniform for roadies but the fans then wanted to buy them. There were some classic examples such as “Frankie Says Relax”, and “God Save the Queen”.

The show was complemented by a display of photographs by Susan Barnett of the back view of people in T-Shirts highlighting the statements made in the backs part of her “Not in Your Face” projects which started by  recording the messages of hope and change on the election of Obama in the US but now also the move to politicised, aggressive statements in the last couple of years.

Closes on 6 May 2018

 

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