All My Clothes, 1973
- Medium
- Kodachrome photographs mounted on board
- Dimensions
- Frame (Silver metal): 9 1/8 x 60 x 1 in. (23.18 x 152.4 x 2.54 cm) Image: 5 x 55 3/4 in. (12.7 x 141.61 cm)
- Accession Number
- 97.92
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Gift of Lannan Foundation
InAll My Clothes, Charles Ray models the contents of his closet in
sequence, from heavy winter wear on the left to shorts and T-shirt on the
right. The camera position, the nondescript setting, and Ray’s lackluster
posture and blank expression remain the same in each of the sixteen snapshots. This
matter-of-fact inventory of the artist’s wardrobe opposes the traditional idea
that art provides catharsis, transcendence, or some sort of profundity. Ray
uses his body and the camera as utilitarian tools to probe art’s more literal,
objective, and even “dumb” side. Just as the artist presents himself as simply
a body for displaying his clothes, which provide little insight into his
interiority or subjectivity, the photographs are straightforward vehicles for visual
information delivery.
