![]() ![]() ![]() I’m thinking of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video.įor this exhibit, many of the designers featured were raised Catholic - and in particular, like Gianni and Donatella Versace or Dolce & Gabbana, they were Italian Catholic it wasn’t really an American Catholic context. The curatorial team was playing with the theatricality of Catholicism, despite it being a pretty moderate exhibit in a lot of ways.īurton: I knew in advance that the exhibit was going to be pretty respectful, knowing the Vatican had been involved, but often in pop culture when we see something that’s Catholic but then subverted into the secular sphere, it’s transgression for transgression’s sake or highly sexualized. There’s epic choral music playing overhead. It’s very dark otherwise, much like a church would be. You enter the central portion of the exhibit, which is the museum’s medieval and Byzantine area, and there are all these mannequins under spotlights, as though they’re in beams of light. I thought that was intriguing.īrooke: I thought it was really theatrical too. At the same time, underneath that was a knowing creativity or playfulness. They wanted to have a certain solemnity to it, which I respect. Overall, I think it was really fascinating and stimulating and more playful than even they were acknowledging. The creators of the exhibit were pretty aware, I think, of some of the ironies that were implicit in the concept to start with. Making use of the museum’s considerable religious art collection, Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton has placed the garments near works whose styles inspired them (Versace tops with glittering, mosaic-like beadwork are displayed among Byzantine mosaics, for instance).įollowing Monday’s press preview of the exhibit, Racked reporter Eliza Brooke and Vox religion reporter Tara Burton sat down with John Seitz, a professor in Fordham University’s theology department, to hash out the exhibit’s representations of Catholicism. While the Vatican’s vestments are sequestered in the subterranean Anna Wintour Costume Center, the rest of the exhibit sprawls across several galleries in the Met’s main building, including the medieval and Byzantine section, and even extends to the Met Cloisters far uptown. The museum’s largest show ever, “Heavenly Bodies” examines the ways that fashion designers have been influenced by Catholic aesthetics - often as a result of their own religious upbringing - and showcases more than 40 liturgical garments on loan from the Vatican. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open its latest fashion exhibit, “ Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” to the public on May 10. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here. The archives will remain available here for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. ![]()
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