Cosmic Aspirations: Considerations on the Museum, Immortality, and Frida Kahlo

Bucci, Alessandro

doi:10.1080/1362704x.2019.1588570

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…This article has argued that the bespoke mannequin design has embodied tensions that existed for Kahlo during her lifetime. In visual motifs of fragmented flesh and surgical scarring across arms and torso, Kahlo’s replica has taken its cue from the corporeal traces that have infused the objects interacting with her body (Bucci, 2019). The mannequin is therefore the connective tissue in this exhibition.…”

Section: Materials Girl: Fabricating Posthumous Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an exhibition premised on Kahlo’s corporeal refashioning during her lifetime, her posthumous identity is reconfigured here without resorting to the standard tropes of memorializing the dead famous. Bucci (2019: 3) highlights the documenting of the ‘life of the author’ as an act of remembering the deceased through the display of artefacts usually restored to pristine condition. Immortality correlates with agelessness, quashing any reference to the mortal body in the process.…”

Section: Materials Girl: Fabricating Posthumous Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…At first glance, the standard process of ‘museumification’ (Bucci, 2019: 3) of the deceased is evident. Enclosed in a glass case, this recognizable simulacra of Kahlo’s physiognomy corresponds to posthumous taxidermy of the famous (Davies, 2010).…”

Section: Materials Girl: Fabricating Posthumous Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Bucci (2019), Kahlo’s body lies at the heart of this exhibition. His study foregrounds the material object as a phenomenological entity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Strike a pose’: Fabricating posthumous presence in mannequin design

Davies

2020

Journal of Material Culture

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Interviewed in 2004, designer duo Viktor and Rolf outlined their ambivalence towards fashion exhibitions suggesting that ‘somehow life is taken out of the subject’ (2008, cited in Teunissen, ‘Understanding Fashion through the Museum in Melchior, MR, 2014). Garments seeking spectator attention within the museum space are often perceived as static entities devoid of their original function as embodied artefacts. There is no denying an inert aura pervades listless materials that have supposedly lost their agency, now confined to the vaults of the museum-as-mausoleum. In their re-purposed role of performing as reminders of a life now departed, this article considers curatorial strategies that seek to revive a living presence in garment display with specific reference to the remodelling of Frida Kahlo in the V&A exhibition ‘Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (2018)’. Addressing Dudley’s suggestion in Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things (2012: 19) that an artefact’s ‘fundamental material characteristics’ should be at the heart of contextual interpretation, the role that an object’s material properties can play in the re-materializing of embodiment is evaluated. In the V&A exhibition, a narrative emerges on clothing as an agent that conceals vulnerable corporeality. Sartorial practices armoured Kahlo’s body and the role material entities can play in containing and preserving the illusion of corporeal substance will be investigated. Given this premise, it seems wholly appropriate to focus on the contribution that the mannequin can make to this conceptual framework. After all, it is an artefact with a central occupation of establishing bodily integrity in the display of clothing. Reiterating Clark’s suggestion in The Textile Reader (2012) that the mannequin contributes to the vocabulary of a curatorial brief, this article proposes that this artefact can interrogate the tensions that exist between Kahlo’s sartorial practices and her abject body. Substantiating Appadurai’s premise of material objects’ agency in The Social Life of Things (2001[1986]), the exhibition arguably employs the once humble tailor’s dummy in a significant role, thereby reconstructing its dominant function of embodying fabric in the museum.

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Section: Materials Girl: Fabricating Posthumous Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Materials Girl: Fabricating Posthumous Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Materials Girl: Fabricating Posthumous Presencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Bucci (2019), Kahlo’s body lies at the heart of this exhibition. His study foregrounds the material object as a phenomenological entity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations