Where in the world does a silk taffeta dress from Lanvin sit side by side with centuries-old Chinese earthenware? 1000 5th Ave, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which, on Thursday, opens the long-awaited exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass to the public. (Met Gala attendees got a first look last night.) True to its name, the show taps into the fantasy underpinnings of Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland and offers a look into not China, really but the ways in which its been interpreted and reinterpreted in the West. This is about a China that exists as a collective fantasy, writes Andrew Bolton, Curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the accompanying catalogue. To that end, there are plenty of gorgeous visual stimuli courtesy of designers like Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano all of whom have been inspired by the country set against Chinese art and film through the ages. Another comparative case in point: the museums Sackler Gallery, home to towering Chinese Buddhist sculptures dating back to 500 A.D., will now also serve as the backdrop to a perspex and LED installation recreating the bamboo forest scenes of 2000s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon film by Ang Lee. Fellow director Wong Kar Wai, by the way, is the exhibits Artistic Director.
Thank you for reading article To See: A Celebration of Chinese Inspiration at The Met
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