Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse
A new exhibition looks at the work of legendary designer Alexander McQueen through the lens of the art and culture that informed his complex collections.
Image credit: Visitor’s at NGV’s announcement of Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse, NGV International, Melbourne. Photo: Tim Carrafa. Courtesy the artist and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne © Alexander McQueen
The death of Alexander McQueen in 2010 was deeply felt across the fashion world but also the broader artistic community, so significant was his creative legacy and prolific output. The designer passed at the peak of his career, experiencing in his lifetime the rare mix of critical and commercial success most often afforded designers posthumously. A major exhibition of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty curated by Andrew Bolton, was already in train when he died, evidence of the considerable critical respect his work commanded while he was alive.
Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse –
a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and the first major Australian exhibition of McQueen’s work, organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) – might be seen as extension of that first blockbuster, a thoughtful addition to the research on his work. Somewhat different in approach and scope to Bolton’s epic,
it focuses on McQueen’s artist influences. Garments and accessories, drawn from both the LACMA and NGV collections, are shown alongside painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts and works on paper from both collections, which serve to illustrate the almost encyclopaedic references embedded in each of McQueen’s collections. It’s a clever juxtaposition that demonstrates how art historically literate McQueen (whose own collection featured artists such as Francis Bacon alongside Byzantine-era works) was, as well as articulating the enduring relationship between art and fashion.
McQueen’s design practice was a heady mix of classic couture techniques and a punk sensibility, ...Subscribe to read this article in full
