When John sold this shirt in the first All My Life For Sale project,
it led to a falling out with
the friend that gave it to him.
Which is a real shame, because I see this shirt as a symbol of hope and unity.
I believe there will only be peace in the Middle East when all the parties
involved put aside their differences and come together over their common
love of pizza and bowling.
I don’t know if I’ve grown more attached to this shirt because it forms a connection between John, myself and this project or because it seems to get more compliments every time I wear it.
Condition: Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent
(This item was on loan to The Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York for John Freyer's exhibit Aftermarket: Art, Objects and Commerce.)
John's description from when he re-sold this shirt:
New Show Pizza Tehran Iran Bowling Shirt
Matt Fee sent me a belated update on this bowling shirt. He returned the shirt to me as a Christmas gift in 2002. It has since sat on a shelf in its original return packaging. With a nice note, apologizing for never sending an update, and saying that he felt to much like "John D. Freyer" when he wore the shirt. I am going to send him the proceeds of this sale, as it fetched $66 the last time around.
I no longer speak to the guy who gave me this shirt in the first place. We had a strange falling out during the process of the All My Life for Sale project. I'm not sure what to do about it. For a while I thought at little space might allow for us to sort out our differences, but it seems like the space has steadily expanded. I still get little updates from our mutual friends, but only from the periphery. When Maya saw him yesterday or Bekah saw him read last week.
For a while I thought that I would just forward the package to him, complete with Matt's Fee's note, but returning a gift is almost as bad as selling it twice.