99 women wearing one dress
Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 28th of September 2007
By Christian Heinrici

How can you get 99 women into one and the same dress? As simple as that: you ask them to stand in a meadow, close their eyes and photograph them – all of them dressed in the same dress, of course one after another. In the case of the photography project of Georg Raab this “one-after-another” has taken four years, but finally he collected his 99 women –in an exhibition that can be seen up until the second October week in the facilities of the Rheinische Musikschule in Sülz, a district of the city of Cologne.
But what is significant about photographing 99 women in a meadow always looking the same? It is not the dress, as it is not very appealing in form or colour and could have easily been selected at a bargain bin in a cheap department store. The women themselves are important, as the photos, despite the uniformity of the scenery that nearly appears to be two-dimensional, presents to the observer a special insight into their personalities. Or maybe this is just the result of the uniformity: all displayed women have their eyes closed, wherefore other features stand out even more - the posture, the facial expression...

The always same dress in front of the same meadow, although worn by different women that have always been asked the same questions, the photographs hung accurately in equal intervals - this type of serial art is an inherent part of Raab’s system: “in his photos and texts he critically inspects systematization, established order, schematization and pattern character of society.

The “99 women wearing one dress” are thought-provoking and animate to reflect upon society, function and functioning, sense and non-sense. This is also part of Raab’s system – It is a very philosophical art that makes one thoughtful, supposedly neutrally observes, maybe laconically but always provided with a wink of the eye and the very personal humour of the artist. “It’ll fit!” had been written onto innumerous cut-out photographs of the dress which were passed out to the visitors of the exhibition by the artist.