Thursday 27 October 2011

Postmodernism at the V&A


On Tuesday I visited the V&A to go to the 'Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-90' exhibition. The exhibition was huge, much larger than I expected, with rooms of architecture, fashion, music, art, print, household objects and furniture - to give an idea of how much was in this exhibition, I was in there for four hours. Not the V&A, just the postmodernism exhibition. Four hours! And I had to sit down three times. To be completely honest, I did find the first half of the exhibition quite repetitive and in my opinion, the amount of examples of architecture and design pieces were unnecessary in gaining a knowledge of the postmodernist movement. However, the exhibits are very visually stimulating so I think it'd be best to have a look but save your energy for the fashion, music and print rooms.
'Postmodernism was an unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical. It was visually thrilling, a multifaceted style that ranged from the colourful to the ruinous, the ludicrous to the luxurious' with its key principles being 'complexity and contradiction. [...] Postmodernism shattered established ideas about style. It brought a radical freedom to art and design, through gestures that were often funny, sometimes confrontational and occasionally absurd. Most of all, postmodernism brought a new self-awareness about style itself'. (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/postmodernism/postmodernism-about-the-exhibition/)


Grace Jones in maternity dress, designed by Jean-Paul Goude and Antonio Lopez


'Homage to Levi-Strauss' dress, Cinzia Ruggeri


i-D, no 28. The Art Issue, August 1985, styled by William Faulkner, design by Terry Jones, photograph by Nick Knight, featuring Lizzy Tear

Find out more about the exhibition here.

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