![]() ![]() This is not really what Andrew Greeley had in mind when he theorized about the Catholic Imagination in a slim volume published in 2000. “Heavenly Bodies” presents Catholicism as eye candy. Nevertheless, the overriding premise of the show remains troubling. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Installation view of “Heavenly Bodies” at the Cloisters, Romanesque Hall Gallery. Their creations are clearly indebted to the pageantry and ritual that has shaped what curator Bolton refers to as their “Catholic imaginations.” Most of the represented designers-they include Dolce & Gabbana, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, the House of Chanel, Alexander McQueen as well as Gianni and Donatella Versace, whose company is a sponsor of the show-hail from Catholic backgrounds. Opulent gowns and accessories adorn mannequins interspersed among the statuary, architectural fragments, and ritual objects in the museum’s Byzantine and Medieval collections. In the exhibition, the Vatican lendings are the foil for the even gaudier and visually outrageous bodily adornments by designers who playfully reference such Catholic tropes as crosses, cowls, halos, and angel wings. However, at $65, it is not likely to be a ready reference for the casual viewer.) (The two volume catalog is another matter, with formidable essays about the theological and liturgical underpinnings of the works on display. One could imagine an exhibition of ecclesiastical robes that explored their intricate iconography, place in Catholic liturgy, and social history. ![]() Digital composite by Katerina Jebb, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On loan from the collection of the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, Papal Sacristy, Vatican City. The unapologetic display of wealth and power embedded in these garments are reminders, as a wall label argues, that the Catholic Church has always employed beauty and pomp to draw the faithful into an appreciation of the glory of God. On occasion these histories give pause, as when a label reveals that a spectacular mitre (headdress) was presented to Pope Pius XI by Benito Mussolini, or that an opulent gold embroidered chasuble for the same Pope was created by the Poor Clares, an order of nuns dedicated to poverty. In the Anna Wintour Costume Center in the Fifth Avenue Met, these vestments and ritual objects are presented in vitrines with descriptions of their materials and provenance. Press reports have made much of curator Andrew Bolton’s remarkable success in convincing Church authorities to lend priceless artifacts from the Vatican Museum. “Heavenly Bodies” mixes actual ecclesiastical garments with clothing and accessories by leading couturiers who have been inspired by the symbols, narratives, and costumes and objects of Catholicism. ![]() What took this show to the next level was the way it created a dialogue between masterpieces in the museum’s holdings and the modes on display, thus placing fashion within the context of art history.Installation view of the Langon Chapel Gallery. More than 1.43 million people saw the show at the Met Fifth Avenue, and 228,737 at the Met Cloisters. “Heavenly Bodies,” the largest show ever staged by the Costume Institute or the museum, stretched out over more than 60,000 square feet in 25 galleries in two locations. It wasn’t only visitors’ imaginations that traveled either-step counts rose, too. Most of the exhibition was dedicated to exploring the diverse ways contemporary designers-whether faithful, lapsed, or nonbelievers-mined the legacy of liturgical garments and the rich symbolism of the Catholic church for their own aesthetic purposes, whether sacred or profane. “Heavenly Bodies” was built around a cache of papal robes and accessories from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, some of which had never been seen outside of the Vatican. What made this show a blockbuster? An inspired theme, for one. 1 show, 1978’s “Treasures of Tutankhamun,” which drew 1,360,957 visitors. Having attracted 1,659,647 visitors, the show is now the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s and the Costume Institute’s most visited exhibition, outshining the former No. The Costume Institute’s spring 2018 exhibition, “ Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” has officially entered a higher realm. ![]()
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