Welcome to the first UKRG Culture Club! Every month we will
be looking at how Registrars, and the issues we face, influence and are portrayed in popular
culture. A registrar’s role, as we all know, has many different guises – the
issues we face are commonly reported in the news and media, and find their way
into popular culture. This blog will be reviewing exhibitions that catch our eye and reporting on how registration issues
are highlighted in pop culture, through literature, film, music and beyond...
Fingers crossed the next Indiana Jones revolves around the
documentation issues surrounding the booty he brought back from the Middle East
on his adventures...
To kick things off, Marie Rose, UKRG Events Officer and Project Co-ordinator at the Natural History Museum went and had a look at the V&A's recent retrospective of Alexander McQueen, Savage Beauty.
As ever a
quick nip over the road from The Natural History Museum to the V&A
transports me from a world of taxidermy and glass jars to ornate couture
fabulousness. My pilgrimage from the church of natural science to the church of
the aesthetic is for the very God-like figure himself: Alexander McQueen and
the ‘Savage Beauty’ retrospective exhibition which had previously been on
display in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I must admit
my knowledge of fashion may be limited - my interests have always sat more
within the alt-world having spent much of my youth trawling the markets of
Camden in search of baggy jeans and faux-Westwood tartan skirts. However, I have
always followed McQueen in awe and fascination for the disturbing and often
cruel elements that are so characteristic of his craft.
This
exhibition doesn’t disappoint: room after room of collections spanning his
career are showcased thematically to give a sense of how his imagination
evolved. His gothic influences from Edgar Allen Poe to the Highland Clearances
which dominated the Highland Rape collection of 1995 are clear. The Romantic
Nationalism room is complete with wooden panels and elaborate chandeliers to
create a magical sense of atmosphere. The exhibition therefore makes for a
decadent boutique rather than a traditional retrospective, shunning the typical
chronological or biographical narrative (the facts we learn about McQueen are
confusingly minimal) to bring us back to the superficial; the objects
themselves.
This mode of
display can be problematic, particularly
when showcased in the central dramatic room ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ with Phillip
Treacy headpieces and my particular favourite, the Shaun Leane body armour
pieces, crammed from wall to ceiling. This room highlights the tension between
the need to showcase his work versus the practicality of the visitor’s viewing
experience, you can’t help but feel disassociated from these objects when
raised so high you have to crane your neck to see them. This layout, borrowed
from the Bowie exhibition, serves to create a physical pedestal for the artist
on display - albeit a slightly frustrating experience for the audience. This is
echoed again in the minimal interpretation with labels deliberately sparse and
tucked away.
Overall this
exhibition posits itself as the ultimate decadent couture showroom, highlighting
the sheer skill of McQueen’s technique: in always designing from the side, the
form’s most awkward angle to make his pieces flattering to all possibilities of
the female form and not the a-typical model frame. His work also signifies the
female form as haunting, dangerous and romantic with many items embracing
natural materials such as feathers and razor clam shells to symbolise woman’s role
in nature.
As an
exhibition this is nothing short of a success of a summer blockbuster, minimal
interpretation and excessive staging aside this does not detract from the
focus; the clothes and savage beauty of Alexander McQueen.
How did they
do that?
This
bemusement goes to the wonderfully hypnotic ghostly apparition of Kate Moss.
Her ethereal image is suspended in a glass pyramid using the wonderfully
inventive ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ technique - pioneered in the 19th
century. This highlights McQueen’s appreciation for the avant-garde. I did
wonder how the registrar for the exhibition arranged to borrow this – was the
image loaned or the entire technical prop. I also wondered if there were issues
with copyright when using Kate Moss’s famous image and if this was leased
rather than a straightforward loan given that it comprises of the object, the
film and the projection. Overall, I’m amazed at the capabilities of the
registrars who brought this wealth of objects together within the exhibition’s
highly decorative and engaging set design. For me, the staging was just as
important as the objects themselves in presenting the absolute tour de force
that was Alexander McQueen.
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