J. Morgan Puett | Home | Nurse Grimm, Night Nurse
Installation view. Dimensions variable. The Nurse Grimm memorial uniform with selections from the Marvin-Neitzel archive and other selected artifacts from the company’s history. Ink on paper. 11” x 14”. Design and flat for final uniform. Marvin-Neitzel patented flex sleeve product description and illustrations of nurse’s uniforms from catalog celebrating 100th anniversary of the company in 1945.		Nurse Grimm, Night Nurse Factory Direct The Arts Center for the Capital Region, Troy, NY, 2001 Co-curators; Michael Oatman , Paul Miyamoto, and Rebecca Shepard. Mark Dion and J. Morgan Puett produced with members of David Grimm’s, (Marvin-Neitzel Corp0ration), former design and production team, the last uniform in this corporation’s 155 year old history. The material of our uniform is exquisite black silk taffeta and satin, since its practical burden is the generation of meaning rather than the rigors of care giving. Its design condenses the motifs and styles of nurses’ apparel over the last century and a half. As the nurse uniform joins those of so many other profession’s distinctive clothing in the closet of history, it takes on new significance- that of costume. The uniform becomes an artifact, an embodiment of the values and assumptions of a particular people at a particular time. Our project stands at the threshold of this transformation, looking back to the practical garment and forward to its status as artifact, free to accumulate new meanings and projected significance.