Oscar Murillo: Arepas y Tamales Shirt

Oscar Murillo’s Arepas y Tamales printed shirts feature emblems from drawings the artist collected from schoolchildren’s desks around the world for his Frequencies project. The shirts were worn for the first time by musicians from the Mar, Río y Cordillera collective, hailing from the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia, where Murillo was raised, when Murillo invited them to perform as part of a public program at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt in summer 2023. Available in one size and ten different designs, the oversize, structured dress shirts are made of heavy cotton and feature mother-of-pearl buttons. Each has a label noting the country from which its drawing originates. In this version, a drawing of a purple fire-breathing reptile, surrounded by the name of the video game Fortnite, covers the shirt’s back.