Hair Shirt

Man’s coat (German) size 56

Insur­ance value 1,500 Euros

Since 2010, Tanya Ury has been working on the research project Who’s Boss – Empire’s New Clothes, as PhD. in Human­i­ties candi­date at Leiden Univer­sity, Insti­tute for Cultural Disci­plines (NL)

An article of clothing made of small plastic bags sewn together; each bag (90mm x 115mm) contains a date label and sample of the artist’s hair from 1998 – 99. It is fash­ioned after a leather Luft­waffe coat design and bears simi­lar­i­ties to the Hugo Boss leather coat, winter fashion 1998 – 99.

Since November 1992, I have been collecting my hair, from natural hair loss daily, and saving it in small plastic sachets (90mm x 115mm), with a hand­written date label. Previ­ously, some of these bags were sewn together by me, to make large plastic sheets resem­bling ​“shower curtains”, one curtain each year, for the instal­la­tion Golden Showers 1993 – 99. Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt is made from plastic bags with hair from Ury’s collec­tion. It is an unlikely and unprac­tical article of clothing — some­thing between being a shower curtain and the contents of a mattress (under Hitler’s dicta­tor­ship, the Nazis collected shorn hair of women concen­tra­tion camp inmates to be used for mattress stuffing). It is also a German Luft­waffe coat proto­type that bears a resem­blance to the Hugo Boss 1998 – 99 winter fashion model, or it is liter­ally, a hair shirt (word-play in English, for ​‘hair shirt’ is the demon­stra­tion of atonement).

The fact that one of the world’s most renowned fashion houses Hugo Boss owes its initial success to its support of the Fascist war machine, and its exploita­tion of forced labourers during the war years, raises profound ques­tions surrounding the rela­tion­ships between fashion and mili­tary fashion, fashion and politics.

A Hair Shirt Army has been produced out of the remaining plastic bags with hair from Ury’s collection.

Who’s Boss — a collec­tion of works:

• Art Prize
• Boss Rune
• Hair Shirt
• Hair Shirt Army
• Röslein Sprach…
• Selec­tion
• shower proof
• Soul Brothers & Sisters
• sweat­shop
• Your Rules

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Presen­ta­tion

2004 Group exhi­bi­tion, Dress­codes, Kunstverein Neuhausen (D)

2005 Group exhi­bi­tion, ​“Stets gern für Sie beschäftigt…” (“Always glad to be of service …”), Opening 27^th January, 28.1. – 27.3.2005, ifa Galerie, Berlin (D)

2005 Group exhi­bi­tion, ​“Stets gern für Sie beschäftigt…” (”Always glad to be of service…”), Prora Doku­men­ta­tion­szen­trum, Rügen (D)

2005 (11.11. – 6.1.2006) Group exhi­bi­tion, Who’s Boss, ​“Stets gern für Sie beschäftigt…” (”Always glad to be of service…”), Kunstverein Rosen­heim (Art Centre), (D)

2006 (26.7. – 9.8.) Solo exhi­bi­tion, seminar Presen­ta­tion: Who’s Boss, 4 pm 26.-7 in the exhi­bi­tion, Tüzraktér Inde­pen­dent Cultural Centre, Budapest (HU)

2006 (28.8. – 3.9) Who’s Boss as Seminar presen­ta­tion, c.sides Festival, Inter­na­tional Conven­tion Center, Jerusalem (IL)

2006 (3.11. – 24.11.) Solo exhi­bi­tion, 9 – 12 hours work­shop with pupils from the Anne-Frank-Realschule (secondary modern). Opening 20 Uhr 3.11., Bochumer Kulturrat, (D)

2007 (4. – 7.4) Who’s Boss power point presen­ta­tion Saturday, April 7^th, 8:00 – 9:30 a.m., Salon K , Fashion, Appear­ance and Consumer Iden­tity, Popular Culture Asso­ci­a­tion, Thirty-seventh Annual Meeting, Boston Marriott, Boston (USA) www​.popu​lar​cul​ture​.org…

2008 (16. – 18.5) Who’s Boss power point presen­ta­tion in German, Limmud-Festival Werbellinsee (Jugen­der­hol­ungs- und Begeg­nungsstätte) www​.limmud​.de/​2​0​0​8_en/… (D)

2014 (13.2. – 21.4) Tanya Ury’s Hair Shirt Army, an instal­la­tion, spon­sored by the Kulturamt (Art’s Council Cologne), will be presented for the first time in the crypt of EL-DE-Haus, the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne (D), opening 7pm, 13^th February, with an intro­duc­tion by Professor Dr. Ernst van Alphen, Leiden Univer­sity (NL). A programme of events includes an educa­tional museum work­shop by Tanya Ury and Barbara Kirschbaum Unnat­ural Conse­quences with young people and on 10^th April, a perfor­mance concert Archive — Burnout with ​“Suspended Beliefs”, impro­vised poetry with impro­vised music: Tanya Ury (voice), Gernot Bogumil (trumpet), Kasander Nilist (double bass), Hans Salz (percus­sion)

Publi­ca­tions & Press

2006 (5.2006) Image of Hair Shirt in Jahre­sausstel­lung (yearly exhi­bi­tion) cata­logue, Kunstverein Rosen­heim (Art Centre), (D)

2008 (11) Hair Shirt discussed in article on Tanya Ury (in German) by Hartmut Bomhoff, Jüdische Zeitung (monthly), Berlin (D)

2014 (February/​March) Flyer and poster with image of shower proof, for Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt Army in the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne (D)

2014 (13.2) ​“A Personal Memo­rial”, article on Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt Army in the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne, by Susanne Kreitz in Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (Cologne City Gazette) D)

2014 () ​“Hair Shirt Army in the Vault”, article on Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt Army in the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne, by Susanne Schramm in Köln kompakt – Rheinische Post – Neuß-Greven­broicher Zeitung (Cologne compact – Rhine Post — Neuß-Greven­broich Paper) (D)

2014 (13.2) ​“Not a vendetta against the Boss Company”, article on Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt Army in the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne, in Kölnische Rund­schau (Cologne Review) (D)

2014 (13.2) ​“Hugo Boss and the Nazi Past”, article on Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt Army in the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne, by (ehu) in Köln Nachrichten (Cologne News) The Online News Maga­zine for Cologne (D)

2014 (26.2. – 26.3.) ​“Tanya Ury: Who’s Boss – Hair Shirt Army” with image of shower proof, by Barbara Hess, in Stadtrevue (City Revue)

2014 (3.5) Inter­view (22:18 minutes on 18^th April) with Tanya Ury by Brigitte Lang and Rebecca Mann, on the instal­la­tion Who’s Boss: Hair Shirt Army in the Nazi Docu­men­ta­tion Centre, Cologne, including extracts of Ury’s concert perfor­mance archive burn out, with Suspended Beliefs: Tanya Ury (text/​voice), Gernot Bogumil (trumpet), Kasander Nilist (double bass), Hans Salz (percus­sion)), online on Allewel­tonair (D) (All the World on air) as podcast – ​“can’t dance without my shadow” www​.allewel​tonair​.de/t…

2014 (5) Inter­view with Tanya Ury by Verena Krippner, online at this link: fish​ing​fore​mo​tions​.de/ (D)

Who’s Boss:

Hair Shirt

Artist’s Writ­ings & Publications

2005 ​“Stets gern für Sie beschäftigt…” (”Always glad to be of service…”) cata­logue, ifa Galerie, Berlin (D)

2005 (1.4.) Who’s Boss project presented in Anti-Flick-Collec­tion Edition

of Texte zur Kunst, in the TAZ news­paper, Berlin (D)

2006 (14−18.6) Who’s Boss as archival mate­rial, Performing Rights Library a four-day confer­ence and accom­pa­nying programme of live events Perfor­mance Studies inter­na­tional (PSi) #12: Performing Rights, Queen Mary, Univer­sity of London (GB)

2007 (7) Publi­ca­tion of Who’s Boss article in Translate/​Narrate issue, volume 20, n.paradoxa, Inter­na­tional Femi­nist Art Journal, London (GB) web​.ukon​line​.co​.uk/n.p…