New Carter exhibition uses a collage of clothing to represent ‘The Museum Body’

If you look closely at the label for the Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s newest installation, you’ll see members of its security, IT and education teams credited — including Prickles the Jackalope.

The jackalope — a beloved faux-furry staple of children’s programming at the Carter — was one of the many individuals who contributed to the new installation “Jean Shin: The Museum Body.”

Meant to make patrons aware of the numerous people it takes to make a museum run, the site-specific installation revisits an early piece of Shin’s work, which uses clothing donated by employees to create a collage.

An employee gave away one of his signature vests, another donated the pants she wore on her first day and Prickles contributed what appears to be an extra, extra, extra small shirt.

Each of their contributions is displayed on the walls of the museum’s first-floor gallery.

“Having lived through a global pandemic, work culture has shifted dramatically. I’m asking … what has changed for our museum, workplace and museum workers?” Shin said.

The installation offers a visual representation of some of those changes because it includes panels from the collage she made with employees at the Museum of Modern Art in New York some 20 years ago, alongside more current items from 50 employees at the Carter.

“You can see how (in) every article of clothing, even though it seems like an everyday object we take for granted, there are actually tons of incredible stories,” Shin said. “It’s part of our lived experience and part of our memories of growing up. This portrait we’re creating has every single shape, every single one of us, (and) leads to a person with their origin story … who they are and why they’re here.”

Alberto Silva Fernandez

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Fort Worth Report)

Picking out curator Maggie Adler’s tunic is easy. The tree stumps with roots, alternating between red and yellow on a blue background, stand out among many solid colors or smaller patterns.

After looking through photos, Adler realized that, without trying, she consistently wore the tunic to exhibition openings and media previews.

The tunic became an unintentional uniform. After 10 years of working at the museum, Adler recently announced that she will leave the Carter to work on other projects.

Now, the ubiquitous item of clothing hangs on the wall in her final exhibition with the museum.

“I joked that it’s like they’re retiring my jersey,” Adler said. “It’s a nice full-circle moment.”

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