Free Essay on Museum and the Exhibition

I visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), the largest city museum in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. Notably, the museum is situated at the historic Golden Square Mile along Sherbrooke Street (Braun, n.p). The MMFA accommodates various artistic specialties such as music, fine arts, fashion and design, and film. Regarding this, I focused mainly on fashion and design artistic works of Thierry Mugler's exhibition, Couturissime. Couturissime is an extensive collection of fashion and design art by a French fashion legendary, Thierry Mugler. I mainly chose Thierry Mugler's Couturissime exhibition because today's artistic world majorly focuses on fashion and design. Style and design are incorporated in films, music, and even artworks.

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Couturissime Artists.

Thierry Mugler is a renowned artist of fashion and perfume. He was born in Strasbourg, France and his passion for artistic work pushed him to focus on the art discipline at a tender age (Laurent, n.p). Mugler's career revolves around almost all ventures of artworks. He is a photographer and launched his first photography book in 1988 which is known as Thierry Mugler, Photographe (Dymond). Mugler also directs short films, video clips, and advertising films particularly those he designed the required costumes for the events. Over the years Mugler has worked on several designing projects of famous people such as creating a perfume for Diana Ross, Lady Gaga and other prominent personalities (Guzzonatto, 83).

In March 2019, Mugler's work was acknowledged by Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the first retrospective career by Thierry Mugler was launched. Thierry Mugler was at first hesitant to launch his fashion work at the museum because he was used to displaying his work at the runways. Mugler was convinced by the museum's director general, Nathalie Bondil and the chief curator model-turned-curator, Thierry-Maxime Loriot to allow his fashion work to venture into another art level which is the MMFA (Lachapelle). This exposed the Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition to the Canadian museum, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Historical Era of the exhibition.

Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition was launched at a time fashion design is the backbone of artistic discipline. This is particularly the era music, film and movie are the primary sources of entertainment, and in the fashion design erects their significance. This historical period is connected to Mugler's past authentic fashion of the 1980s because even Mugler's recent styles are still recognized and appreciated today (Jacob, n.p). Montreal Museum of Fine Arts recollected Mugler's both past and the current revolutionized fashion to celebrate and enjoy the art of style and design. This is because Thierry Mugler invented a new concept of fashion during this historical period by creating haute couture through the use of unique materials to design such as faux fur, latex, and metal (Howarth, n.p). Thierry Mugler is an artist who creates his fashion according to that moment. During the 1980s period, he was a renowned artist who notably created stage costumes for Shakespeare's Macbeth and created Demi Moore costume in Indecent Proposal in 1993 (Silva, n.p). During these contemporary times, Mugler has connected his artistic fashion work to famous music artists such as Beyonce Knowles, and Cardi B.

Importance of Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition

Thierry Mugler has a significant influence not only to the fashion art but also to the world of acting and filming. He designed costumes for the Comedie-Francaise, Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity and Shakespeare's Macbeth (McGillis, n.p). This process helped in the success of the films because the costumes were essential requirements for the films.

Thierry Mugler's Couturissime exhibition has also created a great impact to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. MMFA is a well-established and the largest city museum in Canada that attracts many people. Thierry Mugler's exhibition has also attributed to escalating MMFA success level. Many people who adore fashion art quench their art thirst by converging to MMFA to view the collected unique presentation of Mugler that incorporates unique materials such designing clothes with metal, faux fur and latex (Richardson, n.p). The different people who visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts earn the museum a lot of money both from local visitors and foreign visitors who also make Canada foreign currency.

Couturissime exhibition brings the link between stage performers and fashion art. Couturissime exhibition has manifested the collaboration between the world of fashion and stage performers which after all has a thin line of separation because fashion and stage performance work hand in hand. Many musicians and acting artists have positively responded to Mugler's artistic works. Artists like David Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, and Lenny Kravitz are some of the stage performers who acknowledge Mugler's outstanding outfits (Dymond, n.p).

Mugler's creative fashion design also connects past ancient times of fashion and today's massive vibrant fashion. This is evident when Thierry Mugler's Couturissime exhibition begins with Mugler's traditional costume attire designs for Festival d'Avignon's Macbeth in 1985 (Bekhrad, n.p). Mugler's costumes in this performance manifested creative minds than just the acting part. Further, celebrities like Cardi B wore a piece from his 1995-96 couture collection to the 2019 Grammy Awards. This shows the past fashion by Mugler is still outstanding in today's style.

How Mugler conveys meaning through his artwork

Thierry Mugler does not use his fashion art to be famous or to earn money. His collected Couturissime exhibitions are more than just displayed exhibits because they have meanings. Most of Thierry Mugler's attires are designed for women. The attires designed for women show the compelling nature of women and the costumes present the women as superwomen. The message that can be acquired from those costumes is that women can comfortably walk to the streets as superheroes, mermaids and cowboys.

According to Carballo-Pacheco (n.p), Mugler uses fashion to depict how women are not sexualized to satisfy the male gaze but to grab the power of their sexuality. Mugler's fashion women are without men, and they portray themselves as strong and powerful women. This is evident in Mugler's fashion models characterized by their tall and more prominent nature (Bekhrad, n.p). This is because Mugler believes that women often stand in public and therefore it is essential for their appearance to be visible. The dresses designed for women shows that a woman can upgrade her presence in life.

What the Couturissime exhibition is about

Thierry Mugler's Couturissime show is about Mugler's outstanding collection of fashion from 1977 to 2014. The exhibition includes around 150 garments of Mugler, most of which are displayed for the first time. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts grabbed the opportunity to display Mugler's fashion art from March to September 2019. This exhibition also includes precious unpublished historical documents and sketches

The intended audience for the artwork

I believe that Thierry Mugler intends to communicate mainly to the fashion designers and models. This is because the exhibition displays fashion designs from 1977 to 2014. The intended audience, who are the fashion designers and the fashion models, are for Couturissime exhibition because this is an inspiration to them to venture into more creative designs.

Cultural Expressions in Couturissime Artwork

Thierry Mugler's Couturissime exhibition shows cultural expression and to be precise. The exhibition portrays the popular culture. Popular culture is the set of certain beliefs, practices, and objects that are dominant in a society at a particular time (Freedman, 2). In this sense, these modern times encompass popular culture through entertainment such as music, movies, fashion, video games, and news. For this reason, Couturissime exhibition is a cultural element which influences people, for instance, the fashion designers and the models who may be inspired by the artistic work of Thierry Mugler.

Additionally, Mugler utilized his fashion art to recognize the street culture and Downtown culture. He designed magnificent costumes and hired people who were well conversant with the street and Downtown culture, the transgender models. The transgender models used haute couture exhibitions, which brought to light a very convenient system of designing dresses, worn by models.

Finally, Thierry Mugler's Couturissime exhibition plays a significant role in teaching us about appreciating the culture and particularly, recognizing the historical culture of fashion. This is because Mugler's style is since 1977 and they are still of impact today.

Work Cited

Braun, Jeniffer. "Thierry Mugler exhibition opens in Montreal." Fashion Network, 9 Mar. 2019, us.fashionnetwork.com/news/Thierry-Mugler-exhibition-opens-in-Montreal,1074517.html#.XNWjDhhRWDY. Accessed 10 May 2019.

Bekhrad, Joobin. "Inside Thierry Mugler's World: Where Women Dominate Men." Paper, 18 Mar. 2019. http://www.papermag.com/thierry-mugler-couturissime-montreal-2631741793.html

Carballo-Pacheco, Martin, et al. "Receptor crosstalk improves concentration sensing of multiple ligands." Physical Review E 99.2 (2019): 022423.

Dymond, Anne. Diversity Counts: Gender, Race, and Representation in Canadian Art Galleries. McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2019.

Freedman, Kerry. "Visual Culture and Visual Literacy." The International Encyclopedia of Art and Design Education (2019): 1-10.

Guzzonatto, Andy. "Thierry Mugler: Couturissime." (2019): 81-81.

Howarth, Dan. "Thierry Mugler exhibition in Montreal includes garments for "dangerous seductresses"." Dezeen, 28 Feb. 2019.

Jacobs, Laura. "Thierry Mugler: Couturissime' Review: Beyond Couture." The Wall Street Journal, 18 Mar. 2019, www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/thierry-mugler-couturissime-review-beyond-couture-11552940632. Accessed 10 May 2019.

Lachapelle, Richard, Thibault Zimmer, and Anita Sinner. "The Professional Training of Museum Educators in Canada/La formation professionnelle en education museale au Canada." Canadian Review of Art Education: Research and Issues/Revue canadienne de recherches et enjeux en education artistique 46.1 (2019): 101-112.

Laurent, Saint. "Couturissime - Thierry Mugler at the MMFA Few." The Fall, 22 Mar. 2019, Accessed 10 May 2019.

McGillis, Ian. "It's the right time, right place for MMFA's Thierry Mugler: Couturissime." Montreal Gazette, 2 Mar. 2019.

Richardson, Marc. "Inside The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' Thierry Mugler Retrospective." Fashionista, 22 Mar. 2019.

Silva, Horacio. "How Fashion Legend Thierry Mugler Finally Got the Museum Retrospective He Deserves." W Magazine, 19 Feb. 2019.