CH'IEN CHIEN
Nørrebro, Copenhagen
infoøchienchien.org

THE NAPOLI POEM T-SHIRT, BY MIA LINE
21.07.19-

23.07.19
On one wall hangs a plaster board, originally part of a work in The Inaugural Ch’ien Chien Show
On the other wall a nail, also a remnant of things-on-walls past
On that nail now hangs a T-shirt

26.07.19
The T-shirt is “The Napoli Poem T-Shirt” by Mia Line
“The Napoli Poem T-Shirt” has a text printed on it
The text is built up by quotes from t-shirts spotted on the streets of Napoli, later “written” into a poem on the nearby island of Procida

Another recent work by the artist is based on fragments of ibis bird sculptures found in Pompeii, on the other side of Napoli from Procida
The volcano of Vesuvius overlooks the whole setting, including the Napoletanos and their T-shirts, not yet ash, covered with words, barely language

hello boy
smile your life
datch cool future

27.07.19
The future of writing has always been equally grim
Lamenting the decay of language is as old as writing itself
Writing in itself doesn’t exist
Reading T-shirts is 4 real

29.07.19
T-shirts are for language
As birds are for ornithologists
Who will all be outlived by birds
And mass produced goods

The good news is
They will live to tell the tale
The shirts and the birds

07.08.19
The African sacred ibis was an object of religious veneration in ancient Egypt, particularly associated with the deity Djehuty or otherwise commonly referred to in Greek as Thoth
He is responsible for writing, mathematics, measurement and time as well as the moon and magic
In artworks of the Late Period of Ancient Egypt, Thoth is popularly depicted as an ibis-headed man in the act of writing

12.08.19
The act of writing wasn’t conceived in a day
Time is always running out and so is text
Out in the streets

The streets of Naples are famously filled with waste
Ibis rhymes with debris, sort of

peace make friends
no excuses
free joy

21.08.19

31.08.19
It still shows
It does
It can't hide

The underpaid labour
The cotton monoculture
The seams that open in the first wash

It can't be covered up by text
It's not strong enough for that
It doesn't have that power
Not any more

It never had, the text
That fades in the first wash

It's just for show
It still is
It still shows

09.09.19


The Napoli Poem T-Shirt (2016, silkscreen on T-shirt, edition of 50) is a work by Mia Line.
It hung on the wall at Ch'ien Chien 21.07.19 - 09.09.19.

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CH'IEN CHIEN
Nørrebro, Copenhagen
infoøchienchien.org