Rei Kawakubo and the Art of the In-Between ⎯ The Met's 2017 Spring Exhibition
May 4 — September 4, 2017
The Met Fifth Avenue
Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, Floor 2
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute spring 2017 exhibition, Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, on view from May 4 through September 4, will examine Kawakubo’s fascination with interstitiality, or the space between boundaries. This in- between space is revealed in Kawakubo’s work as an aesthetic sensibility, establishing an unsettling zone of oscillating visual ambiguity that challenges conventional notions of beauty, good taste, and fashionability. Not a traditional retrospective, this thematic exhibition will be The Costume Institute’s first monographic show on a living designer since the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition in 1983.
Blue Witch,
spring/summer 2016; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons.
Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“In blurring the art/fashion divide, Kawakubo asks us to think differently about clothing. Curator Andrew Bolton will explore work that often looks like sculpture in an exhibition that will challenge our ideas about fashion’s role in contemporary culture.”
- Thomas P. Campbell, Director of The Met.
Body Meets Dress–Dress Meets Body,
spring/summer 1997; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons.
Photograph by © Paolo Roversi ; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Body Meets Dress–Dress Meets Body,
spring/summer 1997; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons.
Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In celebration of the opening, The Met's Costume Institute Benefit, also known as The Met Gala, will take place on Monday, May 1, 2017. The evening’s co-chairs will be Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, and Anna Wintour. Rei Kawakubo and Ambassador Caroline Kennedy will serve as Honorary Chairs. The event is The Costume Institute’s main source of annual funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, and capital improvements.
Blood and Roses,
spring/summer 2015; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons.
Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Blue Witch,
spring/summer 2016; Courtesy of Comme des Garçons.
Photograph by © Paolo Roversi; Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Rei Kawakubo is one of the most important and influential designers of the past 40 years,” said Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute. “By inviting us to rethink fashion as a site of constant creation, recreation, and hybridity, she has defined the aesthetics of our time.” Rei Kawakubo said, “I have always pursued a new way of thinking about design...by denying established values, conventions, and what is generally accepted as the norm. And the modes of expression that have always been most important to me are fusion...imbalance... unfinished... elimination...and absence of intent.”
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