Judith Thurman on Alexander McQueen

I wasn't kidding when I said the new, degayed Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met is mandatory -- I went back to see it again during my six minutes in the city between Sicily and Alaska -- and Judith Thurman agrees. In her New Yorker review she says:

Even if you never bother with fashion shows, go to this one. It has more in common with “Sleep No More,” the “immersive” performance of “Macbeth” currently playing in Chelsea, than it does with a conventional display of couture in a gallery, tent, or shop window. Andrew Bolton, the curator of the Met’s Costume Institute, has assembled a hundred ensembles and seventy accessories, mostly from the runway, with a few pieces of couture that McQueen designed at Givenchy, and he gives their history and psychology an astute reading. McQueen was an omnivore (literally so; he always struggled with his weight), and the richness of his work reflects a voracious consumption of high and low culture. He felt an affinity with the Flemish masters, Gospel singing, Elizabethan theatre and its cross-dressing heroines (a line from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was tattooed on his right biceps), contemporary performance art, punk, Surrealism, Japan, the ancient Yoruba, and fin-de-siècle aestheticism. In most particulars, however—including his death—he was an archetypal Romantic.

You will really regret missing it. (The show is such an event it has a wait line of about 15 minutes, and has been extended through August 7.) If you're too far away buy a plane ticket watch this two minute slideshow narrated by Thurman and read the exquisite catalog. To get to the McQueen exhibit you'll pass this newly displayed engraving which reproduces Reverdin's drawing of a 1795 painting (now lost) by Gerard depicting the sixth century Roman general Belisarius, blinded and carrying his young male guide suffering a snake bite.

Comments

[Alexander McQueen Reviews]

Alexander McQueen is a genius. all his creations are stunning (except for fragrances, IMHO - I like Givenchy perfumes better). everybody should definitely see his exhibition at Metropolitan Arts Museum!

[לפרטים]

I like your beautiful and informative post. I also enjoyed slide show given by Thurman. It's really very wonderful. I never so such types of historical collection.