E/MOTION. Fashion in Transition
Fashion is emotion and in motion
'E/MOTION. Fashion in Transition’ explores the way in which fashion is an expression of emotion, fear and desire in society: fashion is both ‘emotionl’ and ‘in motion’. With this exhibition, MoMu looks back on events from the past three decades and asks questions about how fashion can reinvent itself as an industry, as well as the role that fashion designers can play in the future.
Through themes such as the female body, 9/11, identity and surveillance the exhibition looks at how fashion can expose and even anticipate the different emotions running through society. Fashion sits at the very centre of contemporary life, and artists and designers play leading roles in constructing images and meaning in times of fundamental and systemic change. Fashion was in constant dialogue with, and even predicted, different crises and transitions. Like no other medium, fashion can magnify the raw emotions within society. Understanding fashion is a way to understand, and even articulate, both the hopeful and uncomfortable truths of the world.
‘E/MOTION’ looks at the way fashion has been a visual signifier of contemporary instabilities, concerns and emotions.
The exhibition is divided into chapters that function as portals through which social, political and psychological change is explored. All objects – an assemblage of fashion silhouettes, artworks, photography, video and documentation – are presented as symbols, icons or metaphors of their time. Sometimes they offer insights into critically dark truths about the world, whilst others provide humorous portrayals on what it is like to live in the world today.
The exhibition wants to inspire and ask questions about the reinvention of fashion as an industry and the future role of designers and artists. Above all else, ‘E/MOTION. Fashion in Transition’, is a story about our dire need for emotion. Fashion is emotion and in motion.
Delphine Desane, cover image for Vogue Italia, January 2020, Model: Assa Baradji, © Photo: Laurence Prat. Condé Nast Italia
Wolfgang Tillmans, 'Collum', 2011, © Photo: Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne
Vivienne Westwood campaign image, Spring-Summer 1999, © Photo: Gian Paolo Barbieri
Walter Van Beirendonck, æstheticterrorists® collection, Spring-Summer 2002, © Photo: Ronald Stoops
Rick Owens, Spring-Summer 2014, © Photo: Catwalkpictures
Curators: Kaat Debo, Elisa De Wyngaert
Exhibition design: Jan Versweyveld in collaboration with HuismanvanMerode
The exhibition includes work by, amongst others Helmut Lang, Walter Van Beirendonck, Alexander McQueen, Martin Margiela, Hussein Chalayan, John Galliano, Raf Simons, Versace, Phoebe Philo, Demna Gvasalia, Molly Goddard, Simone Rocha, BOTTER, Pyer Moss, Minju Kim, Kenneth Ize, Ester Manas, Supriya Lele, Marine Serre, Jenny Holzer, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nick Knight, Cindy Sherman, Sho Shibuya, Steven Meisel, Jackie Nickerson, David Sims, Juergen Teller, Barbara Kruger,…
CATALOGUE
On the occasion of the exhibition the book ‘E/MOTION. Fashion in Transition’ will be published by Lannoo, available from September 4, 2021. €49, edition in English and Dutch, 272 pages, hardcover, ISBN 9789401476041
PRACTICAL
‘E/MOTION. Fashion in Transition’
From September 4, 2021 until January 23, 2022
MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp, Nationalestraat 28, 2000 Antwerp
T: +32 3 470 27 79 / e-mail: info@momu.be
More info on the exhibition: momu.be
Opening hours: Tue - Sun, 10 AM - 6 PM (closed on Monday)
Tickets: tickets.momu.be