Last Saturday I went to the De Young Museum with a couple of friends to see the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit. I was really enjoying it until I noticed the video of a runway show. It must have been kind of a retrospective fashion show of all his works, because the video showed outfits that were in the De Young's exhibit from several different years -- so I know not to blame Saint Laurent, as this probably happened either after his death in 2008 or after his last runway show (2002).
What I saw that bothered me was a bunch of Black models in his African inspired dresses -- now, this in and of itself did not bother me, in fact, I was momentarily happy to see so many Black faces on the runway at once, given that attention was given to the dearth of Black models on the catwalk last year. I didn't even bother me that they were wearing the African inspired dresses (I don't know what I would have thought had a White model come out wearing them). What did bother me was the "exoticization" (I know that's not a real word) of the models -- they were wearing very large "African" style headdresses, and to top it all off, a White model preceded them on the runway, wearing an outfit that could best be described as something you would wear on safari. That made me cringe - were these Black women to be hunted? Was that the implication? Why have the White woman in the safari outfit precede the Black women in the African inspired pieces at all? Why even go there?
For a second I thought that the video could have been from another time period, because the dresses themselves were from YSL's 1967 collection, but the models' hair and makeup looked altogether too modern for that to be the case. Then I started thinking about the rest of the video -- the use of Black models in other outfits was few and far between -- I only remember a Black model in a toreador outfit and Naomi Campbell in a green, fuzzy coat, black nylons, heels and nothing else. As my friend said, the way the African collection was presented in the runway show was "disturbing on so many levels." It's too bad, because several of YSL's pieces were the mixture of elegant and dramatic that I love.
On the other hand, the Andy Warhol exhibit was a feast for the senses - with music from Judy Garland flooding the darkened exhibit where Warhol's 60's era silver screen/screen prints were hung, the Velvet Underground being played in a groovy room with psychedelic lights, guitars encased in glass, and pillows on a seating area, and disco being played in a section dedicated to Warhol's Silver Factory and Studio 54. There were also clips from movies Warhol filmed, his famous screen tests, record covers that he designed (very cool -- I think the art of the record cover is largely uncelebrated and unrecognized), videos of the Rolling Stones in concert, clips from Warhol's MTV show 15 Minutes, quotes from Warhol ("If I ever have to cast an acting role, I want the wrong person for the part. [...] if you can't get someone who's perfectly right, it's more satisfying to get someone who's perfectly wrong. Then you know, you've really got something."), and of course, lots and lots of paintings, illustrations and photographs. I'm not saying I wouldn't go to the YSL exhibit, just that I felt like I connected more with the Warhol exhibit.
