ART: Long live McQueen

Today, Miraya and I finally ventured to the Upper East Side, where buildings are taller and lives are fabulous(er). Even though this area is home to many treasures such as Barneys and the Met, the East Village area surrounding our NYU home is definitely THE perfect place for two easily amused ladies like us to live for a summer.  We live in Third North Residence Hall on 3rd & 12th--right by St. Marks Place, a street filled with and surrounded by cute random restaurants, aaand right above SoHo. Need I say more?

Anyways, our journey to the Met today finally pulled us out of our downtown haven. Look at Miraya sitting on the steps at the Met! If only we had Blair Waldorf and some headbands....

Actually, I should have said earlier that our journey to the Alexander McQueen Exhibition at the Met today finally pulled us out of our downtown haven.  Me, below, standing, on the steps at the Met because I wanted to do a tourist/asian pic in front of the McQueen sign and display this long skirt of mine I recently bought at Crossroads :) An apparel item I feel normal walking around New York in but would feel very abnormal in walking around Berkeley in.

On a more serious note, the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit made a truly powerful impact on me today.  As I walked through the exhibit, read the accompanying texts, and soaked in the displays in front of me, I felt so much emotion--from within me as well as from what I saw in McQueen's work.  I've always believed that the most genius of artists tend to be the most isolated from the world, because they see it all so differently from the rest of us.  The extremities they see--from the most beautiful to the most grotesque--are what allows them to pour such extreme passion into their art.  This exhibit was a clear reflection of that in McQueen, and it makes me so sad to know that someone who created so much beauty also experienced so much pain.

I hate to sound like I am writing an essay or something but it became so apparent to me today that each and every one of this works is stunning yet uncomfortable; and no matter the ratio there is always this sense of beautiful vs ugly, light vs. heavy, soft vs. hard, life vs. death.  Quotes by McQueen lined the walls, and many of them continually pointed to his passion for the existence of both sides.

His works showed the best tailoring that I've ever seen in person, and his designs--even from the early 90s--are so unbelievably innovative.  Some may dismiss his more outrageous designs as flat-out ugly, but McQueen always saw true beauty in his final works.  Certainly not conventional beauty, but those two words were never associated in his mind in the first place.  On top of all this, he often brought social and political issues into his work, opening the eyes of many who only roam within the world of fashion.

Long live McQueen.  I, like many others, am greatly inspired by him.

-Claire