The Metropolitan Museum of Art has officially joined the 21st century. In its new exhibit, “blog.mode : addressing fashion,” you can view a classic Dior gown and then blog about it. Blog.mode blends the physical and the virtual: garments (mostly, though not entirely, women’s clothing, mostly gowns, but also including shoes, necklaces, bags, and other accessories) are exhibited both in the Met’s galleries and also, via photos, on the blog.mode Web site, where viewers are encouraged to comment on the pieces displayed.
The idea is that, while painting and sculpture can seem removed from our understanding, fashion is somehow a more tangible and accessible form of art. According to the Met:
Unlike its haughty siblings, fashion—even in its most extreme and avant-garde expression—does not estrange us from the belief in the essential aptness of our judgment.
More to the point, the immediacy and democracy of blogging provides the ideal platform where visitors may opine and demonstrate the “aptness” of their judgment on blog.mode: addressing fashion. “By opening a dialogue with visitors to the exhibition and to the blog, the curators hope to expand their own views and further the practice of fashion interpretation and connoisseurship.”
Since its opening, the exhibition has garnered over 500 blog comments. Some comments are short: “nice”, “really pretty”, and “very beautiful and unique.” Other comments have more content: “A beautiful and impressive example of a very important period of style and silhouette. I wish it had been on a rotating platform so the full effect of the small S-curve could be seen better. A wonderful contrast to the Poiret next to it, thank you very much!” and “I’m not sure what I think of this dress. It definately [sic] shows how wealthy the person who wore this was. It might be too blinged out for me but I would not hesistate [sic] to wear it if i got the chance.” I’m interested to see how the the curators will use the comments to “expand their own views and further the practice of fashion interpretation and connoisseurship.”
An interesting concept but I question the assumptions made by the exhibition planners:
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Firstly, garments as fine art are no more accesible to the average viewer than painting and sculpture.
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Next, while blogging may indeed provide a more accessible venue for the masses to opine, the voices of thousands of uninformed bloggers creates noise and not neccesarily meaning.
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Finally, I question the use of the word “fashion” in this context. The idea that garments and textiles can be viewed as fine art I accept. Indeed, previous exhibitions at the Met (Poiret: King of Fashion) have served to refine my understanding of garments and textiles as art. It’s the proliferation of “fashion art” over the past 50 years that has me concerned.
As Paul Johnson states in his Art: A New History:
“It is a different matter, however, when changes in art are forced through…simply by the desire for novelty, itself enhanced by the needs of commerce. Then art becomes a fashion industry rather than a noble pursuit.”
The contemporary art world has suffered from the pursuit of fashion, the hunt for the latest fad, the desire to profit from the artistic “flavor of the day.” In order to enhance participation, museums have embraced modern marketing tools and enhanced their restaurants and gift shops. Exhibitions are designed around popular taste to draw the largest crowds. What does the Met hope to gain by embracing this latest technology fad?
The blog.mode exhibit opened on December 18, 2007 and will run until April 13, 2008.
Further reading:
Art and Fashion: The Impact of Art on Fashion and Fashion on Art by Dr. Alice Mackrell
Related link: FASHION AND ART
Art and design were more closely tied at the turn of the twentieth century than they are today. Artists did not see the difference between creating an original work of art, such as a painting, and designing a textile pattern that would be reproduced many times over. Each was a valid creative act in their eyes…
~TAB
2 Comments
January 12, 2008 at 12:50 pm
You always find the most interesting news, art, and STUFF!
January 13, 2008 at 11:08 am
We certainly try (blush modestly). We’ve got volumes of notes but can’t always find the time to write. So much to post, so little time! Thanks for the comments…it makes it worthwhile. MadSilence