"Jewelry: The Body Transformed" at The Met

Jewelry: The Body Transformed, featuring Yashmak by Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen. Photo: The Met.   For four more days, The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibits Jewelry: The Body Transformed. This exhibition aims to encourage a more enlightened view of jewelry based on the universal uses of jewelry from ages past to now.  

The Body Transformed

Jewelry: The Body Transformed includes a selection of over 230 objects of adornment spanning four millennia. Of course, jewels comprise the majority of these objects, including earrings, headdresses, necklaces, tiaras, and rings. The remaining objects include sculptures, photographs, paintings, and other accessories. Most of the items on display belong to The Met's encyclopedic collection, many of them rarely seen by the public. Melanie Holcomb, one of the curators for The Body Transformed, expressed, "We are inclined to understand jewelry as a superficial pleasure. She hopes visitors leave "seeing that adorning oneself is one of the most profound acts we engage in.” (source) The exhibition chiefly demonstrates the way jewelry accompanies nearly every critical human milestone, including birth, marriage, and death. Historically, jewelry symbolized power, dominion, domination, and the spoils of war. Balanced against the masculinity, jewelry also symbolizes beauty, femininity, individuality, and even sometimes conformity. The Body Transformed highlights the longevity of jewelry as an art form. Indeed, it represents "the world's oldest art form, predating cave paintings by tens of thousands of years," says the exhibit's curators. (source)  

The Body as Canvas

In particular, I find that the most compelling aspect of The Body Transformed is this notion of the body as a canvas for artists. Indeed, the show begins with an exploration of head-to-toe jewelry for the body. Reviewer Brian T. Allen describes jewelry as "the unique unity of body and art, the body a moving canvas to which the best jewelers, great artists and designers, respond." (source) To begin with, several glass columns stand in a grid-like formation in the first gallery. As described in Vogue, the columns serve as jeweled forms that showcase the different forms of jewelry for different areas of the body. For example, a pair of golden grave shoes rest at the base of one. From there, a pair of metal shin guards from the 1530s might meet at waist height a belt made by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1933, and on up to the ears and neck with jewels from different times and places. (source) These eclectically adorned statues especially demonstrate the intriguing continuity in jewelry form and materials. At the same, they highlight the distinctive styles and flairs of each period. In four more sections, The Body Transformed takes visitors on an almost surrealistic journey into the heart of personal adornment practices. Not surprisingly, most of the offerings fit what you expect to find in a museum. Egyptian funereal adornments, Medieval religious icons, noble and royal jewels from various nations, and selections from 20th and 21st century luxury jewelry designers. However, in contrast, some of the jewels demand more from the viewer.  

Yashmak

Arguably, the most compelling work is Yashmak (pictured above). Shaun Leane create the piece for Alexander McQueen for his 1999 runway show. Fashioned from a multitude of hammered aluminum plates, each is centered with a blood red Swarovski crystal. Specifically made for wear on the runway, the face piece includes open eye sockets. Of course, Leane embellished them with blood red crystal eyelashes. Leane patterned this metal veil after the yashmuk worn by Turkish Muslim women to conceal their faces in public. The artist expressed that the conception for Yashmak arose from the notion of “jewelry covering the body to create this formidable structure." (source) Leane's other works on display continue to explore the crossroads between art and culture, beauty and pain, as well as ravishing menace. These include a jaw piece and a crown of thorns. (source)  

The Jealous Husband

To further illustrate these crossroads, The Body Transformed also features somewhat discordant works by Simon Costin and Alexander Calder. The first, Simon Costin's Incubus necklace, purportedly provoked controversy when first display in 1987. (source) The necklace frame consists of swirling, twisted wires of silver and copper. Perched upon this wire nest are five glass ampoules of golden fluids, Costin's semen. Not quite as jarring, Calder's necklace The Jealous Husband appears to snap onto the shoulders of the wearer. Calder fashioned this twisting sculptural necklace from brass. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal described it as a "...a form of forbidding body armor, complete with long spikes shooting straight up from the shoulders... whimsical chastity belt..." (source) To be sure, this fascinating show offers endless intrigue. Visitors will enjoy the many juxtapositions, the comparisons, and the unique displays offered by six talented curators. They will also enjoy the jewels! Again, this show has only four days remaining. If you're in New York this weekend, I highly recommend visiting The Met's website to plan your visit.