Currently I am living a quote – Orthodox jewish life – un-quote in Crown Height, Brookyln. But, I’m pretty sure my rabbi said that I can go to exhibits relevant to my art practice. Oh! Mugler! At Brooklyn Museum. This highlight photo – the woman with the scales and wings – that looks fantastic. I had to go.
Oceanic Feminine
People who know me know that I mostly paint, often talk and sometimes act feminine. I like colorful clothes, the way women think; I like the dance, music and all things archetypally feminine. Like the ocean. Vessels. What am I saying?
I believe that beneath the tradition of the Friday night Sabbath is the mystery of the sexual-rites that were practiced in ancient cultures, where the initiates had to go in a cleansing natural water pool. I think that the head-coverings that Torah observant jewish women wear today harken back to the crown-like cap that the hierodule wore in the ancient mystery rites. So, basically nobody except my editor Johanes knows what I mean. He’s worked on some of my longer and more confusing blog posts in the past. Regardless, Purim is coming up; we celebrate the protagonist Esther – a woman of beauty and wisdom who saved the Jewish people from extinction by a Babylonian King.
Maybe that’s why I went to the Mugler exhibit.
Power Animal
Being a jewish influencer at the Mugler exhibit is fun. We take lots of photos. We take photos. A lot of photos. Videos too.
The Mugler exhibit at Brooklyn Museum displayed outright explicit imagery. I watched my eyes, and tried not to look. Observant jews don’t look at explicit imagery, it desensitizes the personality to more subtle experiences.
I think that Mugler correctly associated sexuality to power, and power to the animal. And he explored this domain relentlessly and honestly. He seemed pretty daring in his personal life; he lived what he believed. I read on wikipedia that he had a bad motorcycle accident and bashed his face.
Some of the fashion pieces on display were incredible. There were feathered head pieces, and dynamic silhouettes. There were spiky crowns full of diamonds, big feathered wreaths. It was larger than life.
That is Mugler in one phrase: Larger-than-life
But sometimes it was also sort of gauche and lame. For instance, a series of pieces inspired by American automobiles.
On the other hand, Thierry Mugler had this ability to take a theme, like Brazil’s Carnival, and make a transcendent and hilarious impression. The models on that one were black. It reminded me the Black Models exhibit from Paris. I wondered about that. Is this empowerment? Or is this repeating a trope? Is free sex empowering? Or is it narrowing women to an object of the eyes? I didn’t settle any grand public discourse on this tour.
Maurice Denis painting at Musée du Luxembourg, Paris. Photographed by Samuel Abelow, 2019.
My Inner Feminine, Mugler’s Mind
I know who I am; I am a jew with a great spiritual sensitivity and profound respect for the feminine – for women. I choke up when I think of my mother at home in Connecticut; I pray with my heart open on Friday night that the world be redeemed and that women who feel the need to sell their bodies on the internet be lifted out of such circumstances and that the world honor the potency of the sexual power; that men take responsibility for the desires to unite with women; and that all people find a path towards being fully realized to the depths of their soul.
That may be why the Angel piece was a standout for me: transcendence, radiance, purity. The shimmering gems, and the angelic silhouette; fully covered; even the hair.
This reminds me of Maurice Denis, a painter whom I’ve long admired, and whose works I saw in Paris as well. Denis was considered a part of the avant-garde Symbolist groups in the 1890’s. He was Catholic and his representations tended to oscillate between exceedingly modest and completely Greek (with nudity). I venture Mugler’s Italian psyche has similar tendencies in relation to the woman.
Mugler is quoted as saying that all of his work was to make people “appear stronger than they actually are.” But, I felt that my fascination with his pieces was that they make the woman appear outside of this world, as if soaring in a spiritual world.
That is why the highlight piece from the show – which I agree with the Brooklyn Museum curators on – is most certainly the woman that is “part tuna and part bird”, as I said on camera. Her headpiece extends out with gorgeous black and teal wings, and her bosom and torso has scales, like armor – yes – but like a vision that Ezekiel might’ve had as well.
Magic, Glamour and Beauty
I think that my fascination with “the influencer” is related to the Mugler fashion. The social media influencer represents themselves in a way that is curated. Everything feels special, polished, or at least just-so-cool. There’s something bigger than life down-here with that.
I know that jewish tradition says that the Creator of the Universe invested the lowest world with the most meaning, but it’s also said that this world is supposed to become a dwelling place for the Shekinah (The Divine Presence, which has a feminine connotation), and I think that will be larger than life in the final analysis; real, ever-so-real, but no-doubt larger than life is now, with all of its conflicts, confusions and chaos.
A couple other nice finds at Brooklyn Musuem permanent collection. To right is Rodin’s Jacob Wrestling an Angel.