The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that the Costume Institute's Spring 2015 exhibition will explore various elements of Chinese art and culture, including fashion and film. The collaboration between the Costume Institute and the Department of Asian Art will be titled "Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film, and Fashion." It opens on May 7 and will run through Aug. 16 in the Museum's Chinese Galleries and Anna Wintour Costume Center.
"Chinese Whispers" will include over 100 high fashion garments, as well as paintings, sculptures, porcelains, and other art and films that the museum says will show the "ongoing dialogues between East and West, past and present." Met Director Thomas P. Campbell said in a press release that he is excited about the partnership between the departments and says that the exhibition will "reveal provocative new insights into the West’s fascination with Chinese aesthetics."
In the same press release, the Costume Institute's Curator Andrew Bolton explains the name of the exhibition: "From the earliest period of European contact with China in the 16th century, the West has been enchanted with enigmatic objects and imagery from the East, providing inspiration for fashion designers from Paul Poiret to Yves Saint Laurent...in an intricate process of translation and mistranslation similar to the game of ‘Telephone’—which the British call ‘Chinese Whispers’—designers conjoin disparate stylistic references into a fantastic pastiche of Chinese aesthetic and cultural traditions.”
Click here to learn more about the exhibition.
