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Hair Shirts
2014
In collaboration with Jacob Dahlgren



According to archaic conventions, striped clothing was the mark of
the treacherous or transgressive. The high-contrast, hard-edged stripe
served as a hazard sign and a visual analogy for the uncomfortable
proximity of convicts, prostitutes and butchers to God-fearing folk.

For Hair Shirts a current news item, featuring a latter-day rogue bearing
an ancient family name, is rewritten each day as a very, very short story.
Colours from the corresponding heraldic coat of arms then dictate the
T-shirt selection, so that Jacob can become penitent or pariah
on the anti-hero’s behalf.

 

28/04/14

Hair Shirts

Rising from gas board worker to Formula One tycoon, then narrowly
escaping losing all to his statuesque ex-wife, Ecclestone is now being
hauled over the coals for bribing a banker.

 

29/04/14

Hair Shirts

A 140 year-old village shop has closed down after TV presenter Portas
performed an onscreen makeover, introducing unpopular epicurean
stock stacked on cheaply made shelves, which buckled.

 

30/04/14

Hair Shirts

Michelin star restaurateur Terry dismissed as banter the complaints, from his
only female chef, that she was slapped on the behind, taunted with earwigs and
dead mice, had fish rubbed in her face and was shut inside a freezer when pregnant.

 

01/05/14

Hair Shirts

In a university address, Hambling described another artist’s film – a much-
acclaimed critical revisionism of slavery – as ‘frightfully boring’, adding that
‘slaves would be very handy’ and that she wouldn’t mind a few herself.

 

02/05/14

Hair Shirts

Among the presenters of the world’s most watched factual television programme,
May is identified with boring automobile safety precautions. He was photographed,
by a passing motorist, talking on the phone while driving along the motorway.

 

03/05/14

Hair Shirts

Although within his rights to shoot dead the two spaniels that were killing his
livestock, including his grandson’s pet chicken, farmer Glover was unfortunate
in that one of the dogs he buried belonged to a veteran sitcom actress.

 

04/05/14

Hair Shirts

When his own daughter called to complain, Mayor Macri eventually
apologised for claiming that cat calling in the street is a nice compliment
that all women secretly like, and which he occasionally gives out himself.