Untitled
Title
Untitled
Description
Comprising a stack of plastered white shirts speared by three black metal rebars, this work was created in response to the 1988 mass murder of male workers at a banana plantation in Colombia. Similar to the white work shirts the plantation workers would have worn, the garments stand in for the murdered men. The piercing of the shirts with rebars symbolizes the violence of their deaths.
Originally shown in 1989 at the Galería Garcés Velásquez, the AMAM work was installed alongside several other stacks of plastered shirts of various heights, as well as metal bed frames wrapped in animal skins, lying on the floor or leaning up against the wall. The bed frames recall how the plantation workers were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their families. One of Salcedo’s first projects to incorporate clothing, this installation marked a turning point in her body of work as she increasingly began to use clothing as her primary material.
Originally shown in 1989 at the Galería Garcés Velásquez, the AMAM work was installed alongside several other stacks of plastered shirts of various heights, as well as metal bed frames wrapped in animal skins, lying on the floor or leaning up against the wall. The bed frames recall how the plantation workers were dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their families. One of Salcedo’s first projects to incorporate clothing, this installation marked a turning point in her body of work as she increasingly began to use clothing as her primary material.
Creator
Doris Salcedo
Colombian, b. 1958
Colombian, b. 1958
Source
The Allen Memorial Art Museum, Gift of Cristina Delgado (OC 1980) and Stephen F. Olsen (OC 1979)
Date
1989-93
Format
Shirts, gesso, and steel rebars
Overall: 66 3/4 × 10 1/8 × 15 1/8 in. (169.5 × 25.7 × 38.4 cm) Base: 3 1/2 × 21 × 26 7/8 in. (8.9 × 53.3 × 68.3 cm)
Overall: 66 3/4 × 10 1/8 × 15 1/8 in. (169.5 × 25.7 × 38.4 cm) Base: 3 1/2 × 21 × 26 7/8 in. (8.9 × 53.3 × 68.3 cm)
Type
Work
Identifier
2002.21.1
Citation
Doris Salcedo
Colombian, b. 1958, “Untitled,” Physiology - Capstone Projects from BIO 312, accessed October 28, 2026, https://physiology.oberlincollegelibrary.org/items/show/133.