Title
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-BetweenPosted In
Fashion, Fashion design, ExhibitionDuration
04 May 2017 to 04 September 2017Venue
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fifth Avenue)Opening Hours
Sunday to Thursday 10:00 – 17:30 / Friday and Saturday: 10:00 – 21:00Location
Telephone
+1 212 535 7710| Detailed Information | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between | Posted In | Fashion, Fashion design, Exhibition | Duration | 04 May 2017 to 04 September 2017 |
| Venue | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fifth Avenue) | Opening Hours | Sunday to Thursday 10:00 – 17:30 / Friday and Saturday: 10:00 – 21:00 | Location |
1000 Fifth Avenue New York City, NY 10028
United States |
| Telephone | +1 212 535 7710 | ||||
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Absence/Presence
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Body Meets Dress–Dress Meets Body, spring/summer 1997; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Body Meets Dress–Dress Meets Body, spring/summer 1997; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
On the occasion of the exhibition, the New York Times’ Leanne Shapton gives a succinct account of how Kawakubo’s creations "don’t move from day to evening. They don’t flatter. They don’t slim. They don’t fit perfectly or offer comfort or reassurance. But then, given a beat, they do all of the above”. It’s quite true that the 74-year old Kawakubo, who founded Comme des Garçons back in 1969, does not design clothes exactly –clothes are just the material of her art. Her creations are perhaps more akin to sculpture. In them, Kawakubo tackles the performance of gender, of aesthetics, of fashion. “I have always pursued a new way of thinking about design...by denying established values, conventions, and what is generally accepted as the norm. And the modes of expression that have always been most important to me are fusion...imbalance... unfinished... elimination...and absence of intent”, says Kawakubo.
At the Met’s exhibition, her work is structured around 9 dominant dualisms: Absence/Presence, Design/Not Design, Fashion/Anti-Fashion, Model/Multiple, High/Low, Then/Now, Self/Other, Object/Subject, and Clothes/Not Clothes. Once more, the essence of her work is in-between each of these terms, which her work audaciously redefines. The exhibition itself, designed in close collaboration with the artist, is housed on the Met’s second floor, which has been transformed for this purpose into a bright white box with geometric structures.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, (from left) High/Low, Model/Multiple, Fashion/Antifashion, Design/Not Design © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Then/Now
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Inside Decoration, autumn/winter 2010–11; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Kawakubo’s exhibition is a very rare occurrence for the Met as well, with the only other monographic show of the Costume Institute on a living designer being the homage to Yves Saint Laurent in 1983. In highlighting the stark differences between his own designs and Kawakubo’s, whose first Paris show was characterized as Hiroshima chic by shocked critics because of the critical jolt of aesthetic awareness that it provided and which continues to be Kawakubo’s signature, the Met consciously finds itself in between very different perspectives on fashion. This is not just a nod to Kawakubo’s work, but to the necessary non-place of all art as innovation.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Cubisme, spring/summer 2007; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Object/Subject
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Clothes/Not Clothes: Form/Function © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Clothes/Not Clothes
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Clothes/Not Clothes: War/Peace © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Blood and Roses, spring/summer 2015; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between. Gallery View, Clothes/Not Clothes: War/Peace © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Blue Witch, spring/summer 2016; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. Blue Witch, spring/summer 2016; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. 18th-Century Punk, autumn/winter 2016–17; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. 18th-Century Punk, autumn/winter 2016–17; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons. The Infinity of Tailoring, autumn/winter 2013–14; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons. Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(from left) Andrew Bolton and Rei Kawakubo at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
(from left) Carrie Rebora Barratt, Rei
Kawakubo, Andrew Bolton, and Anna
Wintour at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons objects on display at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, speaks at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons objects on display at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
Carrie Rebora Barratt, Deputy Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, speaks at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
Carrie Rebora Barratt, Deputy Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, speaks at The Met's Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between advance press event. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com.
