Museums and mortality

O'Neill, Mark

doi:10.2752/175183412x13286288797890

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Kahlo’s absent body is regenerated in this reproduction and the mannequin performs an integral role in the exhibition narrative of memorializing. Whilst museums are filled with objects that tell stories of the deceased (Grunenberg, 2004; Hallam and Hockey, 2001; O’Neill, 2012; Tilley, 2006) so the spaces incorporate statues and figurative sculptures that personify the dead. In the Kahlo exhibition, amongst others mentioned, the artist’s physiognomy elevates the mannequin from abstract object to recognizable subject.…”

Section: ‘Life Histories’: the Mannequin’s Career Trajectorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Without bodies in motion, an inert aura pervades clothing and they enter the realm of disembodied objects (Anderson, 2000). In the museum-as-mausoleum (Adorno, 1967; Grunenberg, 2004; O’Neill, 2012) the mannequin appears to substantiate garments’ deathly pallor (Wilson, 1985). Itself a motionless artefact, this surrogate body generates the impression of a stagnant understudy to its human counterpart.…”

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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: ‘Life Histories’: the Mannequin’s Career Trajectorymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%