Designed by the theater scenographer Jan Versweyveld to focus on camp’s exuberant aesthetic, The Costume Institute’s new exhibition, “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” will be on view from May 9 through September 8, 2019, at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 999.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit, framed around Susan Sontag’s seminal 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp,’” will showcase more than 250 objects dating from the 17th- century to the present, to discuss the thread of “camp,” from Louis XIV, King of France, to Drag Queens.
The NYC show will examine how the elements that Sontag identifies as “camp”- like artifice, démodé, excess, extravagance, humor, innocence, irony, nostalgia, pastiche, parody, surplus, and theatricality – are expressed in fashion.
“Fashion is the most overt and enduring conduit of the camp aesthetic,” said Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at The Met. “Effectively illustrating Sontag’s Notes on ‘Camp,’ the exhibition will advance creative and critical dialogue about the ongoing and ever-evolving impact of camp on fashion.”
The much-anticipated “Camp: Notes on Fashion” exhibition will be unveiled on Monday, May 6, 2019, at “The Costume Institute Benefit,” also known as”The Met Gala.” The event, led by US Vogue editor-in-chief and Condé Nast artistic director Anna Wintour, singer and actress Lady Gaga, tennis star Serena Williams, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele, and singer Harry Styles, is underwritten by Gucci.