Join Alexandra Schwartz, Guest Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, for a conversational in-person tour of the exhibition “Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art”, the first global survey exhibition dedicated to the use of clothing as a medium of visual art. The tour will be followed by a discussion with Alexandra on independent curating and the making of the exhibition.
Members only - 25 guests max
Dr. Alexandra Schwartz is the curator of Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art at the Museum of Arts and Design and an Adjunct Professor at SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology. Her upcoming and recent exhibitions include 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2022), Ed Ruscha: OKLA at the Oklahoma Contemporary (2021), and As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler Paintings at the Clark Art Institute (2017). She is the author of Come as You Are: Art of the 1990s (University of California Press, 2015) and Ed Ruscha’s Los Angeles (MIT Press, 2010), and the co-editor of Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, 2010). Schwartz previously held curatorial positions at MoMA and the Montclair Art Museum and has taught at Columbia, Fordham, and the University of Michigan, among other institutions.
About the exhibition: The first global survey exhibition dedicated to the use of clothing as a medium of visual art, Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art examines work by thirty-five international contemporary artists, from established names to emerging voices, several of whom will be exhibiting for the first time in the United States. By making or altering clothing for expressive purposes, these artists create garments, sculpture, installation, and performance art that transform dress into a critical tool. Adopted globally as an artistic strategy, garmenting uses the language of fashion to challenge traditional divisions of form and function, cast a critical eye on the construction of gender, advance political activism, and address cultural difference. Live performances and activations involving five of the artists in Garmenting will be presented on-site throughout the exhibition.