Montreal coup: Gaultier exhibition to be shown in Paris
In a coup for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot, the Montreal-conceived-and-produced exhibition on fashion enfant terrible Jean Paul Gaultier will be shown at the Grand Palais in Paris, the first time the grand, historic Beaux Arts exhibition space will be devoted to a fashion exhibition.
On tour since its 2011 première at the Montreal museum, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, has travelled to Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid, Stockholm, Rotterdam and New York.
Its next stops are in London and Australia, but the exhibition has never been seen in Gaultier’s hometown, Paris. It runs in Paris April 1 to Aug. 3, 2015.
The exhibition has hit its one-millionth visitor at its current venue at the Brooklyn Museum, a record for a fashion ex- hibition, surpassing the almost 700,000 visitors to Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, shown at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2011.
“Can you imagine how excited he is?” Loriot said of Gaultier. “The enfant terrible back in his own city.”
In every city, Loriot said, the show is adapted slightly to the audience. The talking mannequins and Madonna corset bra are constants, but London will feature a section on Gaultier’s muses based on beauty as he sees it, from Boy George to Andrej Pejic to Farida Khelfa.
The Paris touch will be a surprise, said Loriot, en route to Paris for Gaultier’s haute couture show Wednesday.
“It’s like a never-ending tour. It’s fantastic,” he said. “For Gaultier, it’s his biggest show ever. He’s a genius. I’m just a storyteller.”