“I am a romantic schizophrenic.”
One of the first aspects of the exhibit that catches the viewer’s attention is this beautifully painted quote. What does it mean to be a romantic schizophrenic? A schizophrenic means someone who suffers from schizophrenia (a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of the process of thinking and of emotional responsiveness – thank you Wikipedia); however, if I had to think of a non-disease related definition of a schizophrenic, I would have to say a state of being contradictory, incapable of focusing on a single thing, and insane. Romanticism from a classical perspective is a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that celebrated emotions, intuition, imagination, and the natural. These definitions don’t do much in terms of helping me understand what McQueen meant by this, however. Does he mean he’s, himself, is a schizophrenic whose work is steeped in romanticism, that his work schizophrenically exhibits romanticism-eque traits? Or perhaps he wasn’t even looking at romantic in the academic sense of the word but rather a more traditional sense of chocolate and long walks on a picturesque starry night, not that this really illuminates me either.
I’m opposed in my thoughts on the quote and the entire exhibit, so perhaps in some ways this quote is perfect, because part of me relishes in the unique and rather beautiful juxtaposition of two words, and the other part wonders what was the purpose of placing this quote at the beginning of the exhibit. Its goal, perhaps, is to lure the viewer in, engage the imagination, but discourage the need to delve beyond the surface.
Before I commence with my rant, I’d like to say that I am glad that I went. Can I say that it was worth the 4.5 hour wait? Not so sure.
Each piece is a wonderfully crafted and beautifully presented oddity, and looking in retrospect, the entire exhibit exuded a ‘melancholy’ mystique with its wonderful embellisments, the music selection (A Scent of Intrigue by Tony Hymas), the whimsically pattered wallpaper, antique gilded mirrors, and masks, lots and lots of masks.
There were two key aspects of the exhibit that detracted from my personal enjoyment. First, the use of said masks distorted the entire exhibit in my opinion. The fact that the masks were created by a third party for the sole purpose of being used in this exhibit made me feel question the entire exhibit’s integrity. It was difficult to take anything at its face value. Second, I had an issue with the overuse of the word ‘melancholy’. It’s completely understandable that one word may perfectly capture everything the writer is intending to express; however, overuse will always make things feel just a little bit trite.
Now, onto what confused me. I think I have always struggled with positionining fashion relative to the rest of the visual art genre, and I think a lot of that has been because I never truly understood what the purpose of fashion is — Is it suppose to be a form of expression of the creator? The wearer? Is it suppose to be beautiful? realistic? commercial? Should the purpose be to document? If it is an art, is it expected to be cutting edge and evolve just like the arts have? I’ve never been forced to come to any firm conclusions. As I wandered, no, actually purposely directected myself through the exhibit, because how can you wander when there are so many people pushing and shoving to get to the front and really examine McQueen’s work, I couldn’t help but struggle.
Throughotu the exhibit, I definitely saw a forcibly drawn parallel between McQueen and Diane Arbus (documentary photographer), Paul Gauguin (post impressionist and primitivism artist), and the Romantics (no I am not talking about the movie). With such active positioning within the art scene, I can’t help but let my opinions on each of the above influence my impression of McQueen.
The connection to Diane Arbus stems predominantly from one of the carefully selected quotes painted on the wall: “I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists. I have to force people to look at things.” It reminds me of the picture of the “deformed” boy with the toy grenade in central park and the giant and his two parents. It also brings up the fact that Arbus chose the exact picture to display. Instead of forcing people to look at what as there and real, she purposely chose the photograph that looked the most odd and deformed. How is that a fair portrayal?
With Gauguin, it was use of scales, feathers, skin (human and not), essentially the natural. With the Romantics it was the excessive use of themes like empowerment of the individual (in McQueen’s case, specifically the empowerment of females); the emphasis on fantasy, creativity, and the imagination (e.g. “There is no way back for me now. I am going to take you on journeys you’ve never dreamed of.”); and the dark grotesqueness of the entire exhibition. Each of these themes were touched upon, but not fully explored, and I’m not sure whether this is because McQueen failed to fully delve into each topic or if because the exhibition strove to be comprehensive.
In the end, the exhibition left me with more questions than answers. McQueen’s aesthetic is more tangible to me now in a way where I know I can expect to be surprised, but that really isn’t understanding an aesthetic is it? It’s more knowing that you really just don’t understand.
In conclusion, I wanted to finish this draft (without pictures, which will come one day), which is long overdue, as: “It’s important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle. Everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.”
I need to move on.
