//literary and arts//
Fall 2018
Heavenly Bodies, Earthly Viewers
Yona Benjamin
Two museums, two clearings in the woods. Both of these locations set the scene for parts of this year’s Met Costume exhibit Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. The Met 5th Avenue headlined the exhibition with pieces also appearing at the Met Cloisters, deep in the wilds of Fort Tryon Park. The exhibit claims to “examine fashion’s ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism.” (1) Heavenly Bodies inspired me, it insulted me, but it overall expressed to me in a full way how religion and popular culture ultimately stand in opposition to one another due to both their own failure to self-actualize and not merely the intransigence or corruption of the other.
I first ventured to see the 5th Avenue exhibition on its opening day, May 10, 2018. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the crowds were not much heavier than on any other day during that season, and I was able to make my way through the museum with ease. As someone who sees art and religion as central parts of my life, I had high hopes that this exhibit would elegantly and profoundly examine the interwoven threads of material culture and Christian life that sow the bodice of our society as I experience it. What followed this initial visit was a months-long engagement with multiple parts of the exhibition as I struggled to draw my own conclusion from an exhibit which is rife with dissonance, as much as it is with divine harmony.
The first thing to say about the 5th Avenue exhibition is that it is loud. One can hear its soundtrack, a brash techno thump, even from within the hectic and loud museum lobby. It is the plainchant that sets the tone and rhythm for the whole experience of this location's version of the exhibit.
One enters the Byzantine and Medieval wings, eardrums pounding, ready to enter the Cathedral of high art and design, the Cardinal Valentino presiding. This has always been one of my favorite sections of the museum. I find the bewitching mystery of medieval design to be captivating and, for a few brief moments, I often forget that I am in one of the largest museums in the world, surrounded by bustling streets and maniacal Manhattan pedestrians. The costume exhibit shattered that illusion. The dark halls adorned with tapestries and devotional sculpture was full of loud colors and again, that thick baseline on a loop. What was once a sleepy museum with cold stone floors had been imbued with the glitz and glamor of a fashion runway. For a moment one is not in the museum on 85th Street at all, but rather 40 blocks south surrounded by the some of the biggest names in fashion. Dior, Prada, and Hugo Boss all bombard the senses and catch one off guard.
The scene is bright, yet auspicious and austere. I am reminded of the words embossed on the ark of my childhood synagogues Know before whom you stand. I am in the presence of both Dolce and Gabbana (D&G) and I must be humble before them. Once the momentary shock wore off, I was able to appreciate the dazzling craftsmanship on display. The curators had organized the exhibition, lacing it seamlessly within the permanent medieval and byzantine displays, in terms of particular hierarchies associated with the Church and its teachings, Ecclesiastical, monastic, and heavenly. Power and order were the watch words of this exhibit and everywhere one looked they were to be found.
I was first drawn to the two lines of pieces standing like sentinels along the main (eastern) entrance. They represent hierarchy from the bottom to the top of the church power structure, from lowly brothers and sisters of monastic orders, up the highest echelons of the Vatican See. I was immediately drawn to a series of Balenciaga pieces each denoting the distinction between priestly black and cardinal scarlet. A set of two dresses and two suits stood out, each with one black and the other a deep and dashing red. Just as the princes of the Church stand out in a crowd, these pieces made all others wilt before them. Dating from the mid 1950’s, these works present Church members as dashing and noble models. With the emblematic drag that still epitomizes many of fashion house items to this day, one cannot deny that these works are fashion at its most, yet they present images evocative of church pageantry. One does not know whether one is gazing at a procession of the cross down the nave of a Basque cathedral, with a young Cristobal Balenciaga gazing at the finery from the pews, or the catwalk at Paris fashion week, the now adult couturier staring his models down with the gaze of a stern parish priest.
And herein lies the thrust of the 5th Avenue exhibition. This exhibit displays how Catholic imagery has inspired generations of the West’s greatest designers. However, I could not help but feel that these individuals drew more brutality than love, more power than passion from their Catholic imaginations. The beauty of these pieces exists on a canvas of austerity and discipline while also embodying opulent corruption.
~
In 1972, the Italian Filmmaker Federico Fellini released his cult classic film Roma, which tells the story of the city herself through a series of vignettes. One memorable scene is the ‘ecclesiastical fashion show’ in which the Papal court views an extravagant array of new designs for church use. A number of these pieces are reminiscent of those in the exhibition and the curators make note of the comparison. Two pieces, a Dolce and Gabbana dress from Autumn/Winter 2016/17 and the other house of Dior (John Galliano) from the same season of 2000-1 are both takes on the extravagant gowns of the popes. Both represent the Papal vestments in a number of ways. The dresses stood forth displaying thick and beautiful white cloth festooned with jewels and embroidery. However, they are both women’s dresses. Dior sports an exaggerated corset waistline, and D&G’s tapers off at the knee like a cocktail dress and is cut for large breasts. Both parade the unmistakable white papal mitre, which would have been the image both of these designers grew up with given the abandonment of the famous papal tiara in 1963. (2)
These pieces seem to take a mixed pose towards their Catholic heritage. The pageantry and splendor of the Catholic church, as well as its powerful gaze towards common society have a place in the artistic vision of the designer, hence the clear homage given to the Papacy in these dresses. However, the actual ideology of the Catholic church is seen as passe if not even ridiculous, as symbolized by the topsy-turvy mockery of the gender bending in these two works. These designers are clearly inspired by their Catholic backgrounds, both by the opulence of the Church and its stern grip on power and prestige. However the pose they take towards the living Church is one of mockery rather than piety.
~
But of course, this is all really about sex. The centerpiece to the 5th Avenue installation is a scandalously stunning full length Valentino ball gown from Spring/Summer 2015. Waves of red silk and velvet cascade down the slender mannequin. Light glistens on the shimmering fabric and glimmers as one circumambulates it. The baseline drums on and on, and I wonder, is this a Cardinal’s gown or a Madonna’s cloak? The plunging neckline tantalizes the museum goers and people of all ages and genders gape at the velvety fabric which panels the mannequin’s aggressive cleavage. The papal gowns mentioned earlier have provocatively embellished hips and/or high skirts, and a number of other dresses evoking nuns and other monastic figures stare down at the viewer as dangerous, yet sexy disciplinarians. That such a theme is present in the vision of the artists is echoed by the museum curators, who mention that the nun’s habits from Thom Browne were initially displayed as part of a striptease inspired by the costumes of The Sound of Music (1965). This furthers the point that while the designers showcased in the Met 5th Avenue exhibition were inspired by Catholicism, it was the lavish pageantry, and domineering hierarchy that guided their creativity rather than more robust Catholic dogma or ideals, let alone actual devotion.
~
The experience of Heavenly Bodies at The Cloisters, however, tells an altogether different story. As one approaches the Cloisters from within Fort Tryon Park one feels lost within an overgrown wood. The structure of the Cloisters itself appears in a clearing, it stands on the high ground yet its doors are open, inviting. It is proud, yet still a source of shelter from the abounding wilds. Here too there is music, but it is hushed and warm; here too there are lights, but they glimmer rather than flash. One is not so much in a high fashion show immersed in the bombastic world of high culture; rather, one is in a cloister.
Here too one is welcomed by the work of the late great Cristobal Balenciaga. In the first room of the exhibition, or rather the first one I entered, (the floorplan is scattered and one gets the feeling that getting lost is central to the journey that the Met cloister is) there is an elegant Balenciaga wedding dress on display. The mannequin faces away from the viewer, her shadow creating the shape of a keyhole on the stone floor. One seems to sense that here we are the ones who gaze (through a peephole perhaps), rather than the works of fashion gazing upon us in the 5th Ave exhibit. The ‘bride’ stands beneath an elevated statue of a crucified Christ, which hangs above the room like an elegant kite. Schubert’s Ave Maria plays softly in the background, both cliché and perhaps out of context in this early Medieval chapel, but it also lends a sense of timelessness to this graceful scene. She stands before the altar, directed towards god on this day of her wedding, perhaps enraptured in the contemplation of the sacrament.
Wandering past this scene one finds themselves in a covered Romanesque courtyard when suddenly one’s eyes gaze up to see a figure standing above atop a pillar. This dark black dress with gold stars, inspired by a Polish icon of the Virgin Mary, designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli as part of the Valentino SpA for Autumn/Winter 2015-16, stands above, floating, glimmering, almost as if lost in a dream, a prayer, gliding like a spectre in the night sky evoked by the fabric itself. Here, like in general at The Cloisters, we are left gazing upon this constellation of a figure; it does not gaze down upon us. Walking through the hallways and chapels, crypts and courtyards, one feels a world away from the hectic rush of Manhattan, and ten years away from the glitz and glamor of 5th Avenue. But more profoundly, what I felt at the Cloisters was love and mystery. There were things that remained hidden no matter how long I gazed upon them. The Catholic imagination as displayed here allowed itself to be apprehended as beautiful, fruitful, gracious and graceful yet never comprehended fully. I saw a tradition that was not my own, but which had inspired beauty, that could inspire me.
In seeing what was presented at the Cloisters, the works from 5th Avenue were cast in a different light to me. They were not just loud and haughty, not merely austere and grandiose. They seemed petty and uncharitable, a betrayal of the truth which existed within the walls of the cloister. Within the cloister I felt as if the Catholic imagination could allow one to experience the divine as interlaced, if not even consubstantial with everyday life. The Catholic theologian Richard Kearny poetically explains that God can be accessed in everyday life, a life which allows us to encounter “the divine in the pause between two breaths. Transcendence in a thornbush. The Eucharist in a morsel of madeleine. The Kingdom in a cup of cold water. San Marco in a cobblestone. God in a street cry.” (3) On 5th Ave, by contrast, it seemed as if the be-all and end-all of a whole tradition was nothing more than some power trips and some bling.
~
I was lucky enough to attend both settings of Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination multiple times during its 2018 run. Each time, the distinction between the experience and the seeming values expressed between the two locales became clearer and more irksome to me. I was continually more impressed by the display at the Cloisters and evermore frustrated by what I saw as an unfair act of slander on 5th Avenue. However, there is more at play than immediately meets the eye. Whereas the depictions of Catholicism on 5th Avenue may seem crass or narrow minded, the designers themselves are/were Catholic and it is up to them to represent what the tradition of Catholicism means to them. One must recall that many of these designers are homosexual, and that they may therefore have a critical standpoint towards the institution of the Church. In their daily lives, Catholicism may have revealed itself more often as a stern nun or a corrupt cardinal than as a loving hand of grace and serenity.
But how does that square up with the reality on display at the Cloisters? The answer may be in the name itself, cloister, perhaps in the ascetic haven of a remote building. Catholicism, or perhaps any religion or belief system, can be let loose to exist and flourish on its own terms and to the best of its ability. However, in reality, it is obvious that faith has uprooted lives, enforced shame, and basked in opulence rather than humility. The true challenge offered by Heavenly Bodies is not how to best depict Catholicism, but how the truth of religion fails itself when it breaks into the world. We must ask not merely why Valentino was formed by harsh Catholic discipline, and instead ask why Catholicism, or religion in general, is often inhospitable to the people it attempts to save. So too, we must challenge the viewpoint which ignores religion’s potential, its reality for some, and only focuses on the slaughtering bench it leaves in its wake. The brilliance of Heavenly Bodies is that it captures both of these moments and preserves them in all their honesty and believability. The challenge is for us to bring the criticism of 5th Avenue up to Fort Tryon Park, and for the beauty of the Cloisters to fall down like Divine Grace to the disenchanted masses. Our aim must be to grasp the heavenly, the peaceful, the profound in the everyday while not becoming callous or unable to communicate that beauty to the world. That crucifixes can be embossed on clutches both means that Christ can be mocked, but it also means that handbags can be the handmaidens of heaven.
I first ventured to see the 5th Avenue exhibition on its opening day, May 10, 2018. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the crowds were not much heavier than on any other day during that season, and I was able to make my way through the museum with ease. As someone who sees art and religion as central parts of my life, I had high hopes that this exhibit would elegantly and profoundly examine the interwoven threads of material culture and Christian life that sow the bodice of our society as I experience it. What followed this initial visit was a months-long engagement with multiple parts of the exhibition as I struggled to draw my own conclusion from an exhibit which is rife with dissonance, as much as it is with divine harmony.
The first thing to say about the 5th Avenue exhibition is that it is loud. One can hear its soundtrack, a brash techno thump, even from within the hectic and loud museum lobby. It is the plainchant that sets the tone and rhythm for the whole experience of this location's version of the exhibit.
One enters the Byzantine and Medieval wings, eardrums pounding, ready to enter the Cathedral of high art and design, the Cardinal Valentino presiding. This has always been one of my favorite sections of the museum. I find the bewitching mystery of medieval design to be captivating and, for a few brief moments, I often forget that I am in one of the largest museums in the world, surrounded by bustling streets and maniacal Manhattan pedestrians. The costume exhibit shattered that illusion. The dark halls adorned with tapestries and devotional sculpture was full of loud colors and again, that thick baseline on a loop. What was once a sleepy museum with cold stone floors had been imbued with the glitz and glamor of a fashion runway. For a moment one is not in the museum on 85th Street at all, but rather 40 blocks south surrounded by the some of the biggest names in fashion. Dior, Prada, and Hugo Boss all bombard the senses and catch one off guard.
The scene is bright, yet auspicious and austere. I am reminded of the words embossed on the ark of my childhood synagogues Know before whom you stand. I am in the presence of both Dolce and Gabbana (D&G) and I must be humble before them. Once the momentary shock wore off, I was able to appreciate the dazzling craftsmanship on display. The curators had organized the exhibition, lacing it seamlessly within the permanent medieval and byzantine displays, in terms of particular hierarchies associated with the Church and its teachings, Ecclesiastical, monastic, and heavenly. Power and order were the watch words of this exhibit and everywhere one looked they were to be found.
I was first drawn to the two lines of pieces standing like sentinels along the main (eastern) entrance. They represent hierarchy from the bottom to the top of the church power structure, from lowly brothers and sisters of monastic orders, up the highest echelons of the Vatican See. I was immediately drawn to a series of Balenciaga pieces each denoting the distinction between priestly black and cardinal scarlet. A set of two dresses and two suits stood out, each with one black and the other a deep and dashing red. Just as the princes of the Church stand out in a crowd, these pieces made all others wilt before them. Dating from the mid 1950’s, these works present Church members as dashing and noble models. With the emblematic drag that still epitomizes many of fashion house items to this day, one cannot deny that these works are fashion at its most, yet they present images evocative of church pageantry. One does not know whether one is gazing at a procession of the cross down the nave of a Basque cathedral, with a young Cristobal Balenciaga gazing at the finery from the pews, or the catwalk at Paris fashion week, the now adult couturier staring his models down with the gaze of a stern parish priest.
And herein lies the thrust of the 5th Avenue exhibition. This exhibit displays how Catholic imagery has inspired generations of the West’s greatest designers. However, I could not help but feel that these individuals drew more brutality than love, more power than passion from their Catholic imaginations. The beauty of these pieces exists on a canvas of austerity and discipline while also embodying opulent corruption.
~
In 1972, the Italian Filmmaker Federico Fellini released his cult classic film Roma, which tells the story of the city herself through a series of vignettes. One memorable scene is the ‘ecclesiastical fashion show’ in which the Papal court views an extravagant array of new designs for church use. A number of these pieces are reminiscent of those in the exhibition and the curators make note of the comparison. Two pieces, a Dolce and Gabbana dress from Autumn/Winter 2016/17 and the other house of Dior (John Galliano) from the same season of 2000-1 are both takes on the extravagant gowns of the popes. Both represent the Papal vestments in a number of ways. The dresses stood forth displaying thick and beautiful white cloth festooned with jewels and embroidery. However, they are both women’s dresses. Dior sports an exaggerated corset waistline, and D&G’s tapers off at the knee like a cocktail dress and is cut for large breasts. Both parade the unmistakable white papal mitre, which would have been the image both of these designers grew up with given the abandonment of the famous papal tiara in 1963. (2)
These pieces seem to take a mixed pose towards their Catholic heritage. The pageantry and splendor of the Catholic church, as well as its powerful gaze towards common society have a place in the artistic vision of the designer, hence the clear homage given to the Papacy in these dresses. However, the actual ideology of the Catholic church is seen as passe if not even ridiculous, as symbolized by the topsy-turvy mockery of the gender bending in these two works. These designers are clearly inspired by their Catholic backgrounds, both by the opulence of the Church and its stern grip on power and prestige. However the pose they take towards the living Church is one of mockery rather than piety.
~
But of course, this is all really about sex. The centerpiece to the 5th Avenue installation is a scandalously stunning full length Valentino ball gown from Spring/Summer 2015. Waves of red silk and velvet cascade down the slender mannequin. Light glistens on the shimmering fabric and glimmers as one circumambulates it. The baseline drums on and on, and I wonder, is this a Cardinal’s gown or a Madonna’s cloak? The plunging neckline tantalizes the museum goers and people of all ages and genders gape at the velvety fabric which panels the mannequin’s aggressive cleavage. The papal gowns mentioned earlier have provocatively embellished hips and/or high skirts, and a number of other dresses evoking nuns and other monastic figures stare down at the viewer as dangerous, yet sexy disciplinarians. That such a theme is present in the vision of the artists is echoed by the museum curators, who mention that the nun’s habits from Thom Browne were initially displayed as part of a striptease inspired by the costumes of The Sound of Music (1965). This furthers the point that while the designers showcased in the Met 5th Avenue exhibition were inspired by Catholicism, it was the lavish pageantry, and domineering hierarchy that guided their creativity rather than more robust Catholic dogma or ideals, let alone actual devotion.
~
The experience of Heavenly Bodies at The Cloisters, however, tells an altogether different story. As one approaches the Cloisters from within Fort Tryon Park one feels lost within an overgrown wood. The structure of the Cloisters itself appears in a clearing, it stands on the high ground yet its doors are open, inviting. It is proud, yet still a source of shelter from the abounding wilds. Here too there is music, but it is hushed and warm; here too there are lights, but they glimmer rather than flash. One is not so much in a high fashion show immersed in the bombastic world of high culture; rather, one is in a cloister.
Here too one is welcomed by the work of the late great Cristobal Balenciaga. In the first room of the exhibition, or rather the first one I entered, (the floorplan is scattered and one gets the feeling that getting lost is central to the journey that the Met cloister is) there is an elegant Balenciaga wedding dress on display. The mannequin faces away from the viewer, her shadow creating the shape of a keyhole on the stone floor. One seems to sense that here we are the ones who gaze (through a peephole perhaps), rather than the works of fashion gazing upon us in the 5th Ave exhibit. The ‘bride’ stands beneath an elevated statue of a crucified Christ, which hangs above the room like an elegant kite. Schubert’s Ave Maria plays softly in the background, both cliché and perhaps out of context in this early Medieval chapel, but it also lends a sense of timelessness to this graceful scene. She stands before the altar, directed towards god on this day of her wedding, perhaps enraptured in the contemplation of the sacrament.
Wandering past this scene one finds themselves in a covered Romanesque courtyard when suddenly one’s eyes gaze up to see a figure standing above atop a pillar. This dark black dress with gold stars, inspired by a Polish icon of the Virgin Mary, designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli as part of the Valentino SpA for Autumn/Winter 2015-16, stands above, floating, glimmering, almost as if lost in a dream, a prayer, gliding like a spectre in the night sky evoked by the fabric itself. Here, like in general at The Cloisters, we are left gazing upon this constellation of a figure; it does not gaze down upon us. Walking through the hallways and chapels, crypts and courtyards, one feels a world away from the hectic rush of Manhattan, and ten years away from the glitz and glamor of 5th Avenue. But more profoundly, what I felt at the Cloisters was love and mystery. There were things that remained hidden no matter how long I gazed upon them. The Catholic imagination as displayed here allowed itself to be apprehended as beautiful, fruitful, gracious and graceful yet never comprehended fully. I saw a tradition that was not my own, but which had inspired beauty, that could inspire me.
In seeing what was presented at the Cloisters, the works from 5th Avenue were cast in a different light to me. They were not just loud and haughty, not merely austere and grandiose. They seemed petty and uncharitable, a betrayal of the truth which existed within the walls of the cloister. Within the cloister I felt as if the Catholic imagination could allow one to experience the divine as interlaced, if not even consubstantial with everyday life. The Catholic theologian Richard Kearny poetically explains that God can be accessed in everyday life, a life which allows us to encounter “the divine in the pause between two breaths. Transcendence in a thornbush. The Eucharist in a morsel of madeleine. The Kingdom in a cup of cold water. San Marco in a cobblestone. God in a street cry.” (3) On 5th Ave, by contrast, it seemed as if the be-all and end-all of a whole tradition was nothing more than some power trips and some bling.
~
I was lucky enough to attend both settings of Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination multiple times during its 2018 run. Each time, the distinction between the experience and the seeming values expressed between the two locales became clearer and more irksome to me. I was continually more impressed by the display at the Cloisters and evermore frustrated by what I saw as an unfair act of slander on 5th Avenue. However, there is more at play than immediately meets the eye. Whereas the depictions of Catholicism on 5th Avenue may seem crass or narrow minded, the designers themselves are/were Catholic and it is up to them to represent what the tradition of Catholicism means to them. One must recall that many of these designers are homosexual, and that they may therefore have a critical standpoint towards the institution of the Church. In their daily lives, Catholicism may have revealed itself more often as a stern nun or a corrupt cardinal than as a loving hand of grace and serenity.
But how does that square up with the reality on display at the Cloisters? The answer may be in the name itself, cloister, perhaps in the ascetic haven of a remote building. Catholicism, or perhaps any religion or belief system, can be let loose to exist and flourish on its own terms and to the best of its ability. However, in reality, it is obvious that faith has uprooted lives, enforced shame, and basked in opulence rather than humility. The true challenge offered by Heavenly Bodies is not how to best depict Catholicism, but how the truth of religion fails itself when it breaks into the world. We must ask not merely why Valentino was formed by harsh Catholic discipline, and instead ask why Catholicism, or religion in general, is often inhospitable to the people it attempts to save. So too, we must challenge the viewpoint which ignores religion’s potential, its reality for some, and only focuses on the slaughtering bench it leaves in its wake. The brilliance of Heavenly Bodies is that it captures both of these moments and preserves them in all their honesty and believability. The challenge is for us to bring the criticism of 5th Avenue up to Fort Tryon Park, and for the beauty of the Cloisters to fall down like Divine Grace to the disenchanted masses. Our aim must be to grasp the heavenly, the peaceful, the profound in the everyday while not becoming callous or unable to communicate that beauty to the world. That crucifixes can be embossed on clutches both means that Christ can be mocked, but it also means that handbags can be the handmaidens of heaven.
1 https://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/heavenly-bodies accessed 10/21/2018
2 Of Galliano, Gabbana, and Dolce all would have been no older than small children when this change came about.
3 Richard Kearny alluding to James Joyce.
2 Of Galliano, Gabbana, and Dolce all would have been no older than small children when this change came about.
3 Richard Kearny alluding to James Joyce.
//YONA BENJAMIN is a junior in the School of General Studies and List College and Literary and Arts Editor of The Current. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo courtesy of: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/heavenly-bodies/exhibition-galleries-met- fifth-avenue
Photo courtesy of: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/heavenly-bodies/exhibition-galleries-met- fifth-avenue