The spring exhibit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute was an obscene and blasphemous display of pop-stars indulging their narcissism and nihilism in the most flamboyant ways they could craft.
There are photos at the linked Daily Mail coverage, if you have the stomach for it. Rhianna in a pope-type hat. Katie Perry as a winged angel. Madonna in a Franciscan habit surrounded by robed-monk type figures, who remove her robe to reveal a "racy white dress."
Other familiar faces similarly put the darkness in their souls on full display:
On the red carpet, Lily Collins said her look was “chic nun.” Sarah Jessica Parker somehow balanced a Nativity scene on her head. Jared Leto and Lana del Rey appeared as Gucci Jesus and Mary.
Quite obviously, this was a huge middle finger to the Lord of all that exists. There's also the cultural level. What the flip are any of these people doing at what ought to be an elegant event characterized by an atmosphere of erudition? The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses some of the world's most treasured masterpieces from throughout the various periods of human achievement. It's a stately building on the eastern edge of Central Park. What are these entertainment mediocrities doing there at all?
We have pop-ified and sexualized every last aspect of life in post-American society. It takes an act of will to escape it.
As we know, the devil is always prowling this realm, looking for souls to devour.
He had quite a banquet the other night in Manhattan.
Satyricon at the MOMA. We know where that led for Roma. Who needs an empire anyhow? Makes me jones for some Campbell's soup.
ReplyDeleteUm, sure.
ReplyDeleteDidn't mean to, but I have triggered the dreaded "um, sure" default mode. Probably because of the suggestion that empires are not needed these days. What harm was there in Campbell's soup cans painted by Warhol, if you missed my allusion? I suppose it was a slippery slope, house of cards, or dominoes, head for the hills...
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this exhibit is at the Museum of Modern Art, not the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ReplyDeleteI tend to take the long view. A near-photographic rendering of a Campbell's soup can doesn't not, it seems to me, ennoble anyone viewing it in any way. Now, the argument can be made that that's demanding too much of art, that art ought to be an expression of a particular artist's vision and that's all. That strikes me as a particularly modern argument.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently reading Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver, one of the architects of conservatism, and he decries the advent of landscape painting during the Romantic period (and is not too keen on Romantic poetry either).
(He also spends a few pages ranting about how jazz is barbaric, and I read that and say, this may be an opinion too far for me. I momentarily think, he wrote this in 1948; maybe he'd have thought differently if he'd had a chance to hear some Stan Getz or Sonny Rollins, but somehow I doubt it.)
The overall point is that in the last few centuries the West has increasingly drifted away from the idea of transcendence in art - and really in life generally.
And thanks for pointing out what the museum in question was. I shall revise accordingly.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute. It was at the Metropolitan Museum. Both of my links say so.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the silly human race where all is vanity, what goes around always comes around as there's not a thing new under the sun? And I guess you're right, it wasn't MOMA or was it MOMA? Which one do they call the Museum of Modern Art? I don't know much about museums but I know what I like, hence there's no longer any need for empires.
ReplyDelete