GOOSHNESS: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Showing posts with label Metropolitan Museum of Art. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

"ALEXANDER MCQUEEN: SAVAGE BEAUTY" has finally closed!

After a successful run, “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” has closed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibit featured the work of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who committed suicide last year. The exhibit highlighted the Victorian romance and dark melancholy (Dark Romanticism) that inspired the designer’s work. McQueen proudly professed that he had found beauty in the grotesque, which is one quality of the Dark Romanticism. It was set to run until July 31, but the organizers had extended the show by a week to accommodate record crowds.

With about 100 ensembles and 70 accessories from collections spanning 19 years, the Costume Institute exhibition “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” reveals the inspiration behind his elaborate shows, his imaginative approach to fashion and the technical ingenuity and masterful constructions of his provocative creations.

“From opening on May 4, we have had more than 625,000 visitors,” museum press officer Nancy Chilton said, adding that the show had already seen the highest attendance of any exhibition staged by the Met’s Costume Institute. “It is among the Museum's top 20 blockbusters.”

Here are some more pictures of the exhibit.

Above: "Romantic Gothic and the Cabinet of Curiosities."

“For McQueen, fashion wasn’t just about wearability or practicality it was a vehicle to challenge our ideas, our concepts about fashion, to challenge our boundaries and challenge what we mean by beauty,” said Andrew Bolton, the curator of the exhibition that opens on Wednesday and runs through July 31. “He saw life very cinematically and I think that was reflected in his clothing.”

"Romantic Primitivism."

"Jellyfish" Ensemble, Plato's Atlantis, spring/summer 2010.

“I wanted the exhibition to unfold like a fairy tale, a Brothers Grimm fairly team. McQueen was deeply romantic in the Byronic sense of the word,” said Bolton, who added McQueen’s shows suggested avant-garde installation and performance art.

McQueen’s interest in history, patriotism and nationalism are featured in his works and shows, which each tell a story.


Left: "Oyster" Dress, Irere, spring/summer 2003. Right: Sarabande, spring/summer 2007. The Oyster dress is made from hundreds and hundreds of layers of silk organza. In the audio voiceover, Sarah Burton explains the how the ivory chiffon is frayed and shredded to give the disheveled look that McQueen envisioned. The dress on the right is embroidered with real fresh flowers. In the words of McQueen, "I used flowers because they die. My mood was darkly romantic at the time."

“In terms of designers who stretch our understanding of fashion and expand the boundaries of fashion, I do think McQueen was unique,” said Bolton.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Alexander McQueen "Savage Beauty" Exhibit at the Met Gala.

Dress from the Alexander Mcqueen autumn/winter 2010 collection
Photograph: Solve Sundsbo/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The work of Alexander McQueen, who died in last year, is to be the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A preview of the show, which will run 4 May to 31 July 2011, was unveiled at the Ritz as part of London fashion week. The US exhibition will feature more than 100 pieces of work from McQueen's 19-year career
The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, will celebrate the late Alexander McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his postgraduate collection of 1992 to his final runway presentation which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion. Approximately one hundred examples will be on view, including signature designs such as the bumster trouser, the kimono jacket, and the Origami frock coat, as well as pieces reflecting the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s that he crafted into contemporary silhouettes transmitting romantic narratives. Technical ingenuity imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at fashion's vanguard.

Ensemble, from the Voss collection, spring/summer 2001

The Met Ball, the fashion world's Oscars, will be chaired this year by Francois-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR, which owns the McQueen label, and his wife, Salma Hayek, with Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Colin Firth, and Stella McCartney, as the co-chairs.

Ensemble, Plato's Atlantis, from the spring/summer 2010 collection

Ensemble, It's a Jungle Out There, from the autumn/winter 1997-8 collection

Ensemble, Dante, from the autumn/winter 1996-97

The 240-page catalogue contains an introduction by the fashion writer, Susannah Frankel, the fashion editor of The Independent, a close friend of Lee McQueen, and an interview, by Tim Blanks, with Sarah Burton, the late designer's right-hand, who has since been appointed creative director of the label.

Dress, Widows of Culloden, from the autumn/winter 2006-7 collection

Dress, from the Voss collection, spring/summer 2001

Dress, Sarabande, from the spring/summer 2007 collection

Dress, No. 13, from the spring/summer 1999 collection

Dress, Irere, from the spring/summer 2003 collection

Dress, from the autumn/winter 2010 collection

Dress, from the autumn/winter 2010-11 collection

"People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don't see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with the dark side of personality"

Pic : Dress, The Horn of Plenty, from the autumn/winter 2009 collection

Leather Dress

Birddress

PaintedTorso

'There is no way back for me now. I am going to take you on journeys you've never dreamed were possible."

Flowy shred Dress

Redridinghood

PonyhairDress

FanDress

"McQueen had such a singular voice and he was a remarkable technician," said Bolton. "He really was one of the most provocative voices of the past 30 years in fashion. "