To be perfectly honest, it wasn't until I visited The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts this summer to view The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk exhibit that I truly appreciated and understood the mastery that is JP Gaultier. It was always the Galliano and McQueen shows that stole my easily distracted attention, gripping onto it until anti-Semitism, depression and/or addiction leading to suicide, got in the way of eternal genius (RIP McQueen).
Having seen the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty exhibit at the MET in NYC post viewing The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier at the MMFA in Montreal - I would say they were comparable in excellence. Both provided imaginative interactivity for the viewer to engage and become a part of the fashion/art (interchangeable) collection. Not only as a viewer was I able to experience and praise the dedication of craftmanship and pure genius behind each collection, but also identity with be enthralled by the passionate emotion behind the complexity of obstacles and struggle of beauty that goes hand-in-hand with being a prodigy (more so directed to the Savage Beauty exhibit, obviously... which I saw more recently = more fresh in my mind).
Please excuse the camera-phone images that don't nearly justify the beauty on the other side of the lens, but regardless, the exhibit was a sensation.
Punk CanCan.
“I think the way people dress today is a form of artistic expression. Saint Laurent, for instance, has made great art. Art lies in the way the whole outfit is put together. Take Jean Paul Gaultier. What he does is really art,” said Andy Warhol (Mondo Uomo, 1984).
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