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Vivienne Westwood gown from SS94 “Café Society” Collection

©Victoria and Albert Museum

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Sonya Sklaroff - Rainbow Flag, 2017

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“that character is problematic” i am sick and twisted. next

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Honestly I'm just doing this so I can divide my vast and prosperous empire between my three quarrelsome fuckup sons.

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This wedding gown designed by Elsa Schiaparelli is the definition of a showstopper. You can see it in all of its Apollo-esk glory at @dalimuseum. Im dying to go back to take another look 😍😍😍 Their show Dali & Schiparelli runs until January 14. #thedali #salvadordali #elsaschiaparelli #fashionfriday (at The Dali Museum)

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Site Visit: "The Art of Dining" presented by the DIA.

This video is projected flat on a table and shows the different courses of a fancy 18th century dinner party. The pieces used in the dinner party are actual pieces in the DIA’s collection along the walls of the room. In the video you can actually see the actual fancy centrepiece that was used in the video is on display adjacent to table.

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Site Visit: The Detroit Institute of Arts

Over the weekend I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts, this is a museum I went to frequently as a child growing up close to the Windsor/Detroit border and absolutely adore. What really struck me this visit, was how the museum put a focus on the environment that their art objects originally belonged in, and the lengths that the museum went to, to give context to the pieces.

This was the most prevalent in the 3rd floor gallery. This gallery featured pieces of dinnerware and items of furniture from 18th century France. In order to bring the objects to life, they projected a video of an 18th century dinner party on a large table in the middle of the gallery with the other dinner ware items.

The video even used pieces that were on display in the actual museum. After watching a typical dinner

 service, the viewer, thanks to a donation the DIA had just received, could walk through a re-creation of an 18th century French music room where guests to such a dinner party would retire to after the meal. 

Sadly, my phone died and I wasn’t able to take any photos of my own. Below are photos of the experience from the DIA website.

#detroit institute of arts #DIA

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Site Visit: AGO At Home with Monsters

In early October I went to the Guillermo Del Toro exhibit at the AGO. What I was most impressed with was how despite never seeing a Del Toro movie and going into the exhibition knowing next to nothing about the man, there was still a lot to interest me.

The ambiance of the exhibition was brilliantly set up with a Victorian style black and red wallpaper on the walls, thick oriental carpets on the floors and a live pianist whose playing could be heard throughout the exhibition. It was a very cozy atmosphere, the experience was akin to walking into a cabinet of curiosities owned by Del Toro consisting of memorabilia from his movies, other movie props, paintings and sketches that inspired him and other ephemera that fit the mood of the exhibition, but was not focused on. It would take hours to look at every single object and I feel that this set up encouraged more of a browsing kind of experience. There were some big-ticket items throughout the exhibition, the kind of pieces that draw your attention immediately and always have a crowd of five to six people standing around them with their arms crossed or holding out a smartphone. These included a statue of the pale man from Pans Labyrinth, a statue of Frankenstein’s monster and a child, but how much of the other objects you took in was really up to the visitor. I saw some people being very meticulous, starting at the top of the large cabinets and working their way down, taking care to read every label and give every object time and attention. Others would approach a case quickly look it up and down and then move on to the next unexplored object. The multiple approaches a viewer could bring to the exhibit were exciting to see, it really did appeal to everyone.  

In my opinion, the biggest miss in the Del Toro exhibit were the oriental rugs throughout the exhibit. I felt that this was a huge oversight in making the exhibit accessible to anyone in a wheelchair. In attempting to create a certain atmosphere in the exhibit they have severely limited the ability of anyone in a wheelchair to enjoy the exhibit in the same way as an able-bodied person. I feel that this could have been easily avoided by leaving the floors of the galley as is or by applying a decal to the floor instead in order to keep the Victorian feel.

At the same time the AGO was also hosting screenings for Del Toro’s films and a week later I saw a screening of Pans Labyrinth. I would strongly recommend doing things in the opposite order, watching his movies and then going to the exhibit but I really enjoy how the AGO was able to add to the experience of seeing the exhibit by holding screenings as well. I was very happy to see that while the exhibit was not completely accessible the theatre was and even had specific wheelchair seating.

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In a step towards scientifically documenting all archaeological sites and monuments in Egypt, the Antiquities Documentation Center (ADC) of the Ministry of Antiquities has started to document the Esna Temple south of Luxor and the Tanis archaeological site in the Delta.

The documentation project, aims to register every inch of every monument in Egypt according to the most up-to-date scientific and archaeological techniques.

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“Dovima with Elephants” de Richard Avedon portant une robe d'Yves Saint Laurent pour Chrisitan Dior (1955) à la conférence sur “Le New Look de Christian Dior” de Marine Chaleroux - historienne - pour le cycle “La Mode, une Histoire de Style” de l'association Des Mots et Des Arts, décembre 2017.

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Site Visit: Dior Exhibition at the ROM

The Dior exhibition at the ROM was amazing, seeing so many dresses together was breathtaking. I loved how they used iPads to let you learn more about each piece. It was a clever departure from the traditional white label. The ability to zoom in on specific details on the dresses and get much closer than you could in real life, while having the actual dress in front of you, enriched the experience.

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Site Visit: Dior Exhibition at the ROM Although the ‘big ticket items’ at the Dior exhibition were the dresses it was a pleasant surprise to also see jewelry and perfume included in the show. I hadn’t thought about having these kinds of items in the exhibition along with the dresses and it was a pleasant surprise. 

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#colburne lodge

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Why are we so obsessed with dead bodies?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-are-we-so-obsessed-dead-bodies-180962869/

This article explores the beginnings of our fascination with human bodies on display. It talks about early exhibits of human remains in cabinets of curiosities, medical museums, and how these collections became to be absorbed by modern museums. The article also touches on the ethical issue of when an object transitions from being a person, to being a specimen.