STAGE performance

... I would like to make you, my dear and long-missed readers, aware of a panel that I shall be hosting next week during Vienna's first autumn edition of the 13festival for fashion & photography. 

On Wednesday, November 20, at 4pm in the main hall of MAK Museum of Applied Arts, a panel of very competent experts will explore different facets of the challenges of exhibiting (and collecting) fashion in a museum context.

A LOOK FROM BERNHARD WILLHELM'S GRADUATE COLLECTION, 1998

"Staging Fashion - Display and collection of contemporary fashion" is what we're going to talk about, and I'm much looking forward to speaking to Karen van Godtsenhoven (curator at Antwerp's MoMu), Dan Thawley (editor of A Magazine Curated By), trend "guru" Lidewij Edelkoort and Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, the director of MAK and host of this event. 

FROM MARKUS STRASSER'S GRADUATE COLLECTION, 2000

There are a great many aspects that I would like us to address, ranging from the overall purpose of fashion exhibitions and the nature of their contribution to the fashion system to questions concerning the potential audience (number of visitors, main points of interest etc.). 

CAN YOU GUESS? PETER PILOTTO'S, FROM 2004

One of the key and core issues in this whole "Staging Fashion" discussion concerns the mode of display chosen for fashion in the context of a museum: How much sense do classic displays that rely on static mannequins make, which alternatives are there that we could think of?

I am all the more excited that Karen van Godtsenhoven will also be among the participants since I recently had the occasion to take a look at an example of her work. Karen co-curated the anniversary exhibition in honour of the fashion department at Antwerps's Royal Academy at "MoMu Mode Museum", and I was there for the opening. 

This show is a very fine example of its kind and the overall set-up is very nicely done, with a very good and clear exhibition architecture. The greater part of all clothes by fashion graduates from Antwerp are shown on mannequins, and this gives visitors the unique chance to take a closer, a very close look at these garments that had never before shown in this context before. 

This "slow mode" is a good alternative to the habitual pace of the fashion system, and I guess that's also what a museum should be: a different kind of place offering new views and more time to familiarise ourselves with whatever subject matter is on display. 

See you next Wednesday, then:
Mak-Vortragssaal,
4pm-6pm,
online-version of the festival programme