Martin Munkacsi and Action Fashion
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Lucile Brokaw on Long Island Beach, 1933. By Martin Munkacsi.
Without Martin Munkacsi, fashion photography could have been a boring medium. In the 1920s and 30s, Munkacsi's dynamic shooting style caught the increasing speed and vitality of modern life. His photographs were integral to the development of action photography, and gave fashion its first glimpse at photographs that showed the synergy between clothing, body, and motion.
In the early 1930s, he began shooting for Harper's Bazaar, the results of which are now on display at the International Center of Photography in NYC. The exhibition "Martin Munkacsi: Think While You Shoot" is up until April 29th. A comprehensive grouping of his work, we see his optimism and joy at the modern age gradually sink into darker, probing images that, by the 1940s, question humankind. Also on display are two other exhibitions for the fashion scholar - Henri Cartier-Bresson's scrapbook and Louise Brooks and the "New Woman" in Weimar cinema.
ICP Museum Gallery
1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
www.icp.org
Sarah Scaturro
Fashion Projects #5 is devoted to fashion curation, examining the meteoritic rise in relevance of fashion exhibitions.
It features interviews with an eclectic assortment of leading practitioners from different corners of the world. The issue includes long Q&As with Harold Koda, the longtime, recently retired curator of the Met’s Costume Institute, as well as the Museum at FIT’s veteran leader Valerie Steele. It also features interviews with curators in Antwerp (the ModeMuseum’s Kaat Debo), Toronto (Royal Ontario Museum’s Alexandra Palmer) and Venice (Maria Luisa Frisa); academics studying the field (Hazel Clark, Annamari Vänskä, and Alistair O’Neill); and, giving an on-the-ground perspective, the Met’s head conservator, Sarah Scaturro. The issue’s cover stars Greer Lankton’s sculptural representation of legendary Vogue editor and Costume Institute doyenne Diana Vreeland, who continues to loom over the field years after her death.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Showmanship and History: An Interview with Harold Koda by Francesca Granata
Woman of Steele: An Interview with Valerie Steele by Lisa Santandrea
Exploring Fashion’s Openness: An Interview with Kaat Debo by Alex Esculapio
London, After a Fashion Curator: An Interview with Alistair O’Neill by Alexis Romano
Curation and Conservation: An Interview with Sarah Scaturro by Mae Colburn
Reflections on Fashion Curating
An Interview with Hazel Clark and Annamari Vänskä
Fashion in the Vast Museum: An Interview with Alexandra Palmer by Ingrid Mida
Restless Curating: An Interview with Maria Luisa Frisa by Marco Pecorari