A First Look at the “Costume Art” Catalog

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition, “The Art of Costume,” connects clothing with art from the museum’s collection, using the “dressed body” as a connecting point. Curator Andrew Bolton writes that his aim was to “reconceptualize fashion as a primary site of visual and social formation” rather than as an illustrative or secondary site. This fashion transcends frivolity and places it on equal footing with paintings, sculptures, etc., which is reflected in the catalog, where artworks and dressed mannequins are displayed side by side. Photographers Paul Westlake and Anna-Marie Kellen collaborated with designer Anna Rieger to connect objects and fashion through the use of gray backgrounds. The cropping of the image and the positioning of the artwork emphasize the symbiotic connection in the pairing.

The exhibition is organized around different body types: naked and exposed bodies, pregnant bodies, aging bodies, etc. These are presented through a paper portfolio in the catalogue, commissioned by Bolton and produced by Julie Wolfe in collaboration with photographer Nathalie Agussol. Bolton and Wolff used the 1+1=3 approach together. The idea is that these combinations are more than the sum of their parts, that the fusion of art and fashion results in something new and, as Wolf puts it, “a self-contained hybrid entity.” “I think this is brilliant about Andrew because it provides a different perspective on the pairings in the exhibition.” She continued, hoping that viewers or readers will be able to “see from their own perspective how they want the puzzle to fit together.”

Wolfe uses Exacto knives, scissors and archival adhesives in her practice, often using unusual materials such as vintage book pages as the basis for her works, on which she layers, writes, draws or paints, and sometimes overprints or gilts. “I wanted the pieces themselves to be very similar, very much like a human touch, but not perfect. There are cut marks, there are some irregularities, and I like the beauty of that.”

In addition to the catalogue, the Met will provide body electric, A numbered edition of 500 keepsake boxes containing Wolfe’s signed and numbered prints and unbound pages that readers can use to make their own connections between art and fashion.

The Art of Costume is published by Yale University Press.