In the news
If shops can reopen in April, why can’t museums?
Museums in England will have to wait until May to reopen but shops, gyms and libraries are set to open in April. What’s the logic in that?
American museums should not be selling their art to keep the lights on
Deaccessioning rules for US museums have been relaxed to raise money for collection care – and even the Met may take advantage. It’s a slippery slope, says Thomas P. Campbell
Most popular
- google_a
- comments
- Recent
- google_a
- comments
- Recent
Podcast
The Apollo 40 under 40 podcast: Mohamad Hafez
The Syrian-born, US-based artist talks to Gabrielle Schwarz about his sculptural dioramas of cities ravaged by war – and offers a message of hope for the future
Art news daily
The week in art news – museums in Germany to open from Monday
Plus: V&A to merge departments and cut 140 jobs | UK government announces £390m to help arts venues reopen | Alan Bowness (1928–2021) | and missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan
Missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan apartment
The panel from one of the American painter’s great narrative series is the second to have shown up by chance in quick succession
The week in art news – Amnesty report points to massacre in Ethiopian town of Axum
Plus: Swiss museums reopen next week, while UK museums must wait until May | Experts confirm message on The Scream is by Munch | and National Gallery in London and Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin update Hugh Lane bequest deal
Reviews
The Met’s Old Masters, seen in a new light
European paintings still occupy prime real estate on Fifth Avenue – but a redisplay offers fresh insight into the Met’s hallowed holdings
Vein glorious: an epic history of marble, reviewed
For millennia, marble was taken to be a gleaming reflection of the heavens – and, in Fabio Barry’s new book, it regains its divine mysteries
Curator Chic: are arts professionals the new fashionistas?
Louis Vuitton collaborates with Yayoi Kusama, 2012 Photo: Yamashita Yohei/flickr
Share
The love affair between art and fashion has been in a pretty healthy state for the last few years. Designers anchor their credibility by collaborating with artists – witness Louis Vuitton pairing up with Yayoi Kusama, Richard Prince and Stephen Sprouse – and museums harness the power of the fashion world to raise their media profiles, as evidenced by the annual Met Ball. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that shows no sign of fading away. Is it the case, though, that this relationship has an impact on the day-to-day style of those of us who work in museums and galleries? Are arts professionals the new fashionistas, or is ‘curator chic’ a style all its own?
A frivolous question? Well, no. I’d argue that personal style is an extension of the work that curators and other arts professionals do – thinking about ways of representing, about the nuances of imagery and context, and the relationships between points of cultural reference. Our work is all about looking and being looked at, and it follows that we are similarly attuned to our own self-presentation. We are all sartor resartus, if you like.
That said, the reality of quotidian dressing can’t be summed up with an easy stereotype or two. There are some curators who fit the fashion plate idea, dressed in the latest that London Fashion Week has to offer before the rest of us have learned to pronounce Erdem Moralioğlu. A few wholeheartedly embrace the anti-fashion art school look – black, navy blue, complicated angles and deliberately unflattering hemlines – while others play up the heritage aspect of their work with traditional, preppy ensembles of tweed, corduroy and cardigans.
So, those stereotypes have a little bit of traction, but they gloss over the practicalities of the job: climbing ladders to open display cases one minute, meeting visiting researchers the next. Not to mention the fact that, as a field, it’s not terribly well remunerated, and most of us don’t have money for Marni. Derisive chuckles were aimed at high-end retailer J. Crew recently, for offering the ‘Curator Pant’ at a mere £168. What exactly makes these women’s trousers more curatorial than any other pair, I am at a loss to understand. It suggests, however, the semantic power of the ‘curator’ trope when it comes to fashion and self-fashioning. It might be an elaborate fantasy, but it’s a fantasy many are willing to buy into.
Related Articles
Made in Italy, ‘The Glamour of Italian Fashion’ at the V&A (Rosalind McKever)
‘Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol’ at the Fashion and Textile Museum (Carey Gibbons)
Lead image: used under Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Share
Recommended for you
Muse Reviews: 20 April
A round-up of the week’s reviews: sculpture in the landscape and sculpture in the home
Review: ‘Artist Textiles: Picasso to Warhol’ at the Fashion and Textile Museum
Some of the world’s most significant modern artists experimented with textile design
Review: ‘Other Primary Structures’ at the Jewish Museum
‘Primary Structures’ in 1966 featured minimalist sculptors from the US and UK. This revisionist revival looks further afield