Our evening devoted to the Met's "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" show was a blast. A member of the curatorial team (who also teaches at Parsons) took us through the exhibit with well-chosen slides and fascinating stories. Then she, the director of the BFA in Fashion and I had a wonderful conversation - followed by Q&A.
Such fun to hear how the exhibition came together (who knew that the original idea had been fashion and the "five world religions," taking viewers on a pilgrimage through the entire museum?), and about the intended and unintended ways the art, architecture and garments interacted! Lots of things I'd noticed (and not noticed) suddenly made compelling sense: I'm going back for another look before it closes.
Most of the audience (SRO in a room that seats forty) came from the fashion programs, so I took several opportunities to talk up religious studies. We're interested in the "Catholic imagination" too, I said, and think that too many people's understanding of religion is Protestant. I even dropped Robert Orsi's his idea that Catholics experience some events as supersaturated with meaning (his word is "abundant"). This fits with a quotation from sociologist Andrew Greeley, which framed both the exhibition and tonight's presentation:
Catholics live in an enchanted world, a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures. But these Catholic paraphernalia are merely hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility that inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation.
Interestingly, though, we heard nothing about enchantment, about things, about sensibility or a lurking Holy. Instead, the "Catholic imagination" was explained in terms of stories - Catholic stuff is full of narratives! I was wondering what this had to do with Greeley, who, at least in this quotation, doesn't mention stories at all. When I looked back at my pictures from the exhibition, I found his ideas had indeed been translated into narrative (and metaphor):
Greeley points beyond the surface of "paraphernalia"to a sensibility attuned to the Holy lurking in abundant events. The next line from this, the book's self-description, is a little less gothic: The world of the Catholic is haunted by a sense that the objects, events, and persons of daily life are revelations of Grace. But exhibition curator Andrew Bolton doesn't go as far. Imagery and symbolism are on the surface, but below "explicit Catholic imagery and symbolism" we find "a reliance on storytelling, and specifically on metaphor." Our presenter, sharing discussions with people from designers to curators to exhibition visitors, including "so many lovely Jesuits," spoke only of stories.
That translates well to the work of fashion designers. It might have worked well for an exhibition on fashion and religion more generally, too. But is it still Catholic without the haunted, enchanted, grace-filled world of abundant objects that demand (and exceed) story and metaphor?
Among the questions we'd prepared for our guest was this:
How was the "Catholic imagination" idea made understandable to non-Catholic (or non-religious) members of the curatorial team? Were there “secular” translations, analogs?
I think we got our answer.
Such fun to hear how the exhibition came together (who knew that the original idea had been fashion and the "five world religions," taking viewers on a pilgrimage through the entire museum?), and about the intended and unintended ways the art, architecture and garments interacted! Lots of things I'd noticed (and not noticed) suddenly made compelling sense: I'm going back for another look before it closes.
Most of the audience (SRO in a room that seats forty) came from the fashion programs, so I took several opportunities to talk up religious studies. We're interested in the "Catholic imagination" too, I said, and think that too many people's understanding of religion is Protestant. I even dropped Robert Orsi's his idea that Catholics experience some events as supersaturated with meaning (his word is "abundant"). This fits with a quotation from sociologist Andrew Greeley, which framed both the exhibition and tonight's presentation:
Catholics live in an enchanted world, a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures. But these Catholic paraphernalia are merely hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility that inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation.
Interestingly, though, we heard nothing about enchantment, about things, about sensibility or a lurking Holy. Instead, the "Catholic imagination" was explained in terms of stories - Catholic stuff is full of narratives! I was wondering what this had to do with Greeley, who, at least in this quotation, doesn't mention stories at all. When I looked back at my pictures from the exhibition, I found his ideas had indeed been translated into narrative (and metaphor):
Greeley points beyond the surface of "paraphernalia"to a sensibility attuned to the Holy lurking in abundant events. The next line from this, the book's self-description, is a little less gothic: The world of the Catholic is haunted by a sense that the objects, events, and persons of daily life are revelations of Grace. But exhibition curator Andrew Bolton doesn't go as far. Imagery and symbolism are on the surface, but below "explicit Catholic imagery and symbolism" we find "a reliance on storytelling, and specifically on metaphor." Our presenter, sharing discussions with people from designers to curators to exhibition visitors, including "so many lovely Jesuits," spoke only of stories.
That translates well to the work of fashion designers. It might have worked well for an exhibition on fashion and religion more generally, too. But is it still Catholic without the haunted, enchanted, grace-filled world of abundant objects that demand (and exceed) story and metaphor?
Among the questions we'd prepared for our guest was this:
How was the "Catholic imagination" idea made understandable to non-Catholic (or non-religious) members of the curatorial team? Were there “secular” translations, analogs?
I think we got our answer.
