Found Raps On Silk (2025)
Inkjet printed on 100% mulberry silk, 25 x 41 in (63.5 x 104 cm)
Found Raps On Silk continues Shirt's ongoing interest in how cultural material travels and what gets preserved in the process. The work begins with a screenshot of a tweet the artist saved for years, printed on densely woven pongee silk. The tweet contains a poem by James Tate, shared by writer and MIT professor Joshua Bennett. The poem was discovered in Tate's typewriter after his death. In 2021, before knowing any of this context, Shirt saved this tweet and then recorded himself rapping the words verbatim for an audio work titled Rap On Found Tweet. For an exhibition at Kunstverein Leipzig in 2025, the screenshot was printed onto archival silk and hung alongside two pairs of headphones playing that original audio recording.
Additional photos available at request
Inkjet printed on 100% mulberry silk, 25 x 41 in (63.5 x 104 cm)
Found Raps On Silk continues Shirt's ongoing interest in how cultural material travels and what gets preserved in the process. The work begins with a screenshot of a tweet the artist saved for years, printed on densely woven pongee silk. The tweet contains a poem by James Tate, shared by writer and MIT professor Joshua Bennett. The poem was discovered in Tate's typewriter after his death. In 2021, before knowing any of this context, Shirt saved this tweet and then recorded himself rapping the words verbatim for an audio work titled Rap On Found Tweet. For an exhibition at Kunstverein Leipzig in 2025, the screenshot was printed onto archival silk and hung alongside two pairs of headphones playing that original audio recording.
Additional photos available at request