“Lagerfeld” Saga: Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute Needs a Rewrite (so might “Pueblo Pottery”)

Notwithstanding the eager visitors who have been drawn to the Metropolitan Museum’s current crowd-magnet—Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty (to July 16), I found the show repellent, and not only because of the late designer’s distasteful views that have been called out by several commentators. In its installation missteps, its awkwardly written labels and, especially, in its reliance on self-interested sponsorship, the show falls short of the high standards expected of other departments at the museum, to which the Costume Institute has often appeared to be exempt.

My reservations seemed not to be shared by the throngs who have endured long lines to get in:

To help satisfy the demand, the museum has instituted special evening hours every Sunday until the exhibition closes.

But the warm accolades of the designer’s fans and boosters left me cold. Met trustee Anna Wintour devoted almost the entire May issue of Vogue magazine (of which she is editor) to fawning over her longtime friend, who died in 2019:

I was turned off by the exhibition’s superficial come-ons and by its disregard of the usual standards for museum displays: The responsibility rests with Andrew Bolton, curator in charge of the Met’s Costume Institute, who once again has indulged his penchant for dramatic installations that are superficially striking but frustratingly unenlightening. As with the Met’s 2019 Camp: Notes on Fashion, Bolton has engaged the eye but not the mind by installing large numbers of garments so high above eye level that no one seriously interested in fashion design could adequately peruse them.

I had raised that same objection when I reviewed the Met’s 2019 Camp vamp and also the 2018 Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination:

Here’s that same self-defeating installation strategy, now sabotaging visitors who may actually want to examine and understand Lagerfeld’s oeuvre:

It’s undeniably striking, but the only way to see the detailing on the ceiling-grazing garb is to rely on binoculars or a zoom lens:

For those of us who had recently savored the Met’s elegant and sophisticated Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, the Lagerfeld show’s categorization of works like the one below as “Trompe l’Oeil” seemed completely wrongheaded. There are no optical illusions here. In no way is the oeil tromped, notwithstanding the Met’s label text:

What I did like was the juxtaposition of many of the garments with videos of Lagerfeld deftly sketching them. Here’s one:

For me, the Lagerfeld show’s biggest failing was putting commercial interests above the serious, disinterested scholarship that the Met’s other departments are best known for. There’s a Lagerfeld-related precedent for this debacle—the Met’s 2005 “Chanel” exhibition, which gave undue prominence to Karl’s designs. (As I then wrote, he was “the current master of the House of Chanel.”)

Here’s what I said about the “Chanel” show in Fashion Victim, my May 2005 NY Times Op-Ed piece:

The museum originally planned to put on “Chanel” five years ago. But then the director, Philippe de Montebello, had a falling out with Mr. Lagerfeld and cut it from the schedule. News reports at the time indicated that the designer had tried to usurp curatorial prerogatives, and wanted contemporary artworks included to bring the display of what he termed “old dresses” into the present.

And here’s a passage from that exhibition’s Overview:

Period examples are juxtaposed with the work of Karl Lagerfeld, who joined the House of Chanel in 1983, revitalizing its spirit and identity. Through Lagerfeld’s interpretations and refinements, the historic importance of Chanel is both defined and asserted for the modern woman.

In “Fashion Victim,” I had stated this:

In general, museums’ treatment of fashion design as contemporary art is neither new nor wrong. But like Chanel’s iconic “little black dress,” such exhibitions must be designed with rigor, so that professional standards are not compromised by commercial interests. With “Chanel,” the Met fails the fragrance test.

Substantially financed by the fashion house, “Chanel” is tainted by the same sort of self-interested sponsorship that brought notoriety to “Armani” at the Guggenheim Museum in 2000 and “Sensation,” the 1999 Brooklyn Museum showcase for Charles Saatchi’s collection. We expect better from the Met, an institution always admired as a guardian of professional standards.

Although Met officials say they had complete control over the show’s organization, the fingerprints of Mr. Lagerfeld are everywhere—and not just on his own ensembles, which constitute roughly a third of those in the show.

My “Chanel” commentary applies even more cogently to the Met’s current “Lagerfeld” presentation:

In the future, it [the Met] should be far stricter in drawing the line between scholarly presentation and commercial promotion. Control belongs in-house, not in the fashion house.

Notwithstanding Wintour’s social cachet and extensive contacts, it’s time to loosen her grip on the Costume Institute, putting complete control where it belongs—in the hands of professional curators who have no financial interest in what’s being shown. I cringed at the use of microphones that were conspicuously Vogue-branded during the livestreamed interviews with attendees at the Costume Institute’s “Lagerfeld” gala. (That online spectacle also featured links to the Vogue website.) I cringed even more at the fatuous chatter of the celebrants, being asked inane questions—“Do you have any tips for styling a pregnant belly?” This had nothing to do with the Met’s scholarly and educational mission and everything to do with creating buzz and flattering the egos (and bellies) of the invitees.

Below, from the “Lagerfeld” exhibition’s website, is a rundown of the self-serving sponsorship by fashion firms for a show devoted to the designer:

—Two houses for which he had formerly worked

—Lagerfeld’s eponymous firm

—The company that publishes “Vogue”:

In another current instance of the Met’s delegation of organizational responsibility to non-curators, the upcoming Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery (July 14, 2023–June 4, 2024) is “the first community-curated Native American exhibition at the Museum,” according to the above-linked press release.

Community-curated? I’ve authored several reviews of museum displays of Native American material, and I fully understand the need to incorporate Native American voices and perspectives in exhibitions of their work. Such consultation is essential. But the Met in 2020 had (belatedly) hired its “first ever full-time curator in Native American Art” (as described by director Max Hollein, as quoted in the Met’s announcement) and Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha) should be the curator for “Pueblo Pottery.”

According to the press release for that upcoming show (July 14, 2023–June 4, 2024), members of a newly established Pueblo Pottery Collective, described as “a group of more than 60 individual members of 21 tribal communities,” will “lead the selection of objects for Grounded in Clay,” as the Met’s Pueblo pottery show is titled:

The members of this newly established tribal collective “selected and wrote about artistically and culturally distinctive pots from two significant Pueblo pottery collections—the Indian Arts Research Center of the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Vilcek Foundation in New York, NY. The exhibition will also be on view at the Vilcek Foundation, beginning July 13,” according to the press release.

On my vacation to the U.S. Southwest many years ago, I was a Pueblo-pottery scavenger, and bought a vessel very similar to the one at the top center of the above image.

Here’s my modest acquisition:

I had never previously heard of the Vilcek Foundation, but I found the Met’s description of it (on the exhibition’s website) to be eyebrow-raising:

The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences.

Immigrant contributions? We’re the immigrants, surely not the Pueblo potters! Perhaps that head-scratching credit refers to the Vilceks (Jan and Marica), who emigrated to the U.S. from the former Czechoslovakia.

But back to “Lagerfeld”: There may be a compelling reason why now would be the wrong time for the Met to terminate its outdated practice of letting a commercial fashion house hold sway over a nonprofit museum’s presentation: In his remarks at the press preview, Met director Max Hollein revealed a tantalizing prospect: He stated that in October, the Met would announce “a new, substantial gift” to the museum, “that will hopefully inspire yet another generation of artists, fashion designers and creatives” (his words, not mine).

In due course, we may learn the identity of that generous benefactor. Any guesses?

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