OVERLAND PARK, Kansas — Artwork and vogue sometimes hook up. It may be serendipity typically, particularly when a designer’s work enters the realm of sculpture or cloth artwork. It might even be a “match made in heaven.”
JoAnne Northrup, govt director and chief curator of the Nerman Museum of Modern Artwork, on the campus of Johnson County Neighborhood Faculty within the metropolitan Kansas Metropolis space, thought so when she conceived A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott.
The idea took place when Northrup needed to do a collaboration with the school’s vogue merchandising and design division. Jeremy Scott’s identify got here up on the first assembly; the world well-known dressmaker is a hometown hero. However whose artwork to pair with Scott’s? Contemporary within the curator’s thoughts was Katherine Bernhardt, a fellow Missourian from St. Louis whose studio Northrup had not too long ago visited. When she approached Bernhardt with the proposed two-person present, the painter instantly fell in love with Scott’s designs. “Everything just aligned,” Northrup defined in dialog with Hyperallergic.
Set up view of A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott
A Match Made in Heaven consists of practically 40 large-scale work by Bernhardt and greater than 500 designs by Scott — 200 of that are sneakers he created for Adidas. The visible cacophony of brilliant neon colours, kitsch, textures, and pop iconography borders on ocular assault — let maximalism sing out! However by some means this playful mixture works brilliantly. Once I visited, museum-goers have been weaving their approach via a maze of Scott’s eclectic mixture of outfits and clothes, marveling in any respect the element. Some have been guffawing on the apparent pairing — who can resist an outsized, caramel-colored, prescription bottle-shaped purse positioned subsequent to a portray of Xanax tablets?
Northrup left a lot of the present’s structure to the artists; she needed to advertise their shared aesthetics with a certain quantity of freedom. Bernhardt’s large work, hung earlier than the clothes arrived, fill 4 galleries, taking over a lot of the wall area. Her brightly coloured, thinned-out acrylics, drips and all, articulate a stream-of-consciousness coupling of seemingly unrelated objects. Cartoonish renderings of a Windex bottle and cigarettes, Cheetos and the Pink Panther, Weight loss plan Coke and mushrooms all float in area.
Outfits by Jeremy Scott for Moschino in A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott
Scott’s zany, over-the-top designs make use of pop iconography with a give attention to American consumerism, in concord with Bernhardt’s imagery. Each artists dig into this theme with depictions of junk meals: Cheetos, hamburgers, French fries, sweet bars. Scott’s droll genius is particularly clear within the consideration to element seen in his equipment: a vinyl pizza field is a handbag; a mustard squeeze-bottle cap is a hat; lettuce leaves add texture to sneakers.
After Bernhardt’s work have been put in, Scott spent a number of days within the gallery together with her work earlier than displaying up with 30 years’ price of vogue (10 spent helming the luxurious label Moschino). As much as three mannequins would possibly cluster across the work then spill out into the center of the galleries. A few of the juxtapositions are simple, akin to a gown with a Hershey Kiss motif with a portray of the candies. Scott’s outrageous hamburger gown, famously worn by Katy Perry on the 2019 Met Gala afterparty, is aspect by aspect with Bernhardt’s portray of McDonald’s golden arches. The confection puzzle comes collectively fairly properly.
The present blends vogue and artwork effortlessly, because the pairing amplifies the artists’ irreverence and humor; unsurprisingly, Northrup stated that the idea got here to her intuitively. Katherine Bernhardt and Jeremy Scott are so simpatico that the intertwining of their artwork feels pure — even divine.
Set up view of A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott. Heart: “Hamburger Dress” by Jeremy Scott for Moschino, worn by Katy Perry to the 2019 Met Gala afterparty.
“Pizza Hut” purse by Jeremy Scott in A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott
Set up view of A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott. Left: Katherine Bernhardt, “Cheetos Cheddar Jalapeño” (2023), acrylic and spray paint on canvas
A Match Made in Heaven: Katherine Bernhardt x Jeremy Scott continues on the Nerman Museum of Modern Artwork (12345 Faculty Boulevard, Overland Park, Kansas) via October 26. The exhibition was curated by JoAnne Northrup.
