Echoes of an Exhibition: Reconstructing Experience in Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

Sean O’Neill

Advisor: Dr. Ann Reynolds

Abstract

Exhibitions, much like runway presentations, strategically immerse attendees into a creative vision for a limited time. Distanced by spatial and temporal limitations, nonattenders can often be left wondering what it must have been like to experience the thoughtful curatorial choices involved in constructing an effective and immersive exhibition. In 2011, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, a retrospective of fashion designs by Alexander McQueen. Occurring about one year after McQueen’s tragic death and acting as the theme for the annual Met Gala, Savage Beauty certainly struck a chord with the public, shattering forty-year attendance records and garnering itself an eighth-place spot among the most attended exhibitions at The Met. Having later been pushed off the top ten list by four exhibitions, three of which were fashion-based, Savage Beauty still rests in the memory of both art and fashion lovers. In this study, I will explore existing information and documentation surrounding Alexander McQueen and Savage Beauty to mimic the experience of physically seeing the exhibition despite never having seen it in person. Appealing to the sensory elements in Savage Beauty, a written walkthrough of the exhibition will orient the reader and establish a level of experience regardless of prior attendance. It is through this walkthrough that the issue of experience comes into view. Through the incorporation of biographical, archival, and viewer experience information, I will discuss how one could lessen the gap between physically visiting and distantly experiencing an exhibition. Ultimately, this study seeks to reminisce in the memory of Savage Beauty while imagining future possibilities of exhibition documentation and experience.