eBay Hoarder Gets Her Own Art Show in Philadelphia

Remember Catherine Keener’s character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin? She bought items, displayed them in her store, and then made people purchase those items on the internet. She probably won’t welcome the comparison, but fashion writer Emily Spivack is bringing a similar project Philadelphia Art Alliance.

Ms. Spivack calls her project “Sentimental Value,” and since she started it in 2007, she has archived more than 600 garments, ranging from a blood-stained shirt purportedly worn by a Civil War-era soldier to a pink tie offered for sale by a lawyer after a judge told him never to wear it in the courtroom again. And there are many, many wedding dresses purchased for nuptials that never happened.

All of these, 70 of which she’s bought, are meticulously archived on her website.

Ms. Spivack has purchased about 70 of the items that she’s found on eBay, some of which will appear in the exhibit. The first was a lot of stockings stashed in a compartment of an Ann Arbor barn — which had been furtively used for filming pornographic movies.

The show runs from May 16th to August 18th. [Wall Street Journal]