How do you define art? I remember going to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art in college, and seeing an exhibit of “found objects”. Curated, of course. I looked at it and saw trash. Then joked to a friend that I should just go to the dumpster, grab a couple of pieces of cardboard and get my own art exhibit.
In my experience, you know art when you see it.
More importantly, you know it when you feel it. And I felt Balenciaga at the de Young Museum. Walking through the exhibit during the press preview I felt the presences of the clothes. To even say clothes feels like I’m shortchanging them. To call them art is to dismiss their history as living, breathing pieces that moved about in the world. While now they live on display, they were created to be alive. The fact that we can now appreciate them as art is a testament to Balenciaga’s craftsmanship and design talent.
I realized this Tuesday night, watching the exquisite performance of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The choreography is truly evocative, but costumes and music deepened and enlivened the entire experience. In movement, the dancers were expressing emotion and making it palpable. But then the lights, the music, the movement of the clothes all triggered the senses to make a near fully sensory experience. Individually these elements can still be moving, but taken together their impact is staggering.
And if the photo is strong, imagine the message it can convey in action.
In that way, it is only with context that we can truly understand the meaning of Balenciaga’s work. I’m reminded of another memory from college – during my study abroad in Paris. A graduate student was giving us a tour of the Louvre and he stopped us in front of a still-life painting that looked like all the other still life paintings. He explained that, by subverting one element, this painter was considered revolutionary for his time. To us today we’ve been exposed to so much we never would have noticed the difference. But Balenciaga too, brought a new perspective and changed his landscape. Infusing his designs with celebrations of traditional elements of Spanish life, such as dancing, bullfighting, fishing, and religion, he created clothes that were technically impeccable, dramatically beautiful, and reverberated with movement; and there were women who gave life to his pieces. He was, as Dede Wilsey, President of the de Young Museum Board of Trustees, said – echoing the sentiments of such designers as Coco Chanel and Oscar de la Renta, “the best of his time”.
Of course we can’t actually get the full effect of his clothes, because now they can only be on display. And my photos don’t do justice to the exhibit. But the fact that they’re this amazing on display only speaks to their enduring appeal. What if you cleared out your entire closet, save for one top from H&M. If it were the only thing in your closet would it still look beautiful? 50 years from now?
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: at Zellerbach Hall through April 3.
Balenciaga and Spain: at the de Young Museum through July 4.
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Alvin Ailey photos courtesy of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
What's your opinion?