V&A Trip: Horst, Disobedient Objects and Retail Therapy

                             

 

I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum on the 18th November along with the rest of the first years from the Fashion and Textiles class at Colchester Institute. Whilst at the museum I visited the Horst: Photographer of Style exhibition which displayed a huge range of Horst P. Horst's work.

Horst created images that transcended fashion fashion and time effortlessly. He was seen as the master of light composition and atmospheric illusion due to his well known visual style of using dark and dimmed lighting with the occasional spotlight in the background or shining upon the model or desired object. Horst was a regular visitor to The Louvre (Paris) as he had a big interest in ancient and classical architecture and sculpture which is clearly shown in his work which often features some sort of ancient Grecian styled pillar or sculpture as a prop or part of the background set.

As mentioned earlier, his work withheld a prominent style of dimmed lighting creating visually beautiful, dark photographs. Although not everyone saw them this way. His darkened lighting often caused disagreements with Vogue staff when working with them. Edna Woolman Chase declared that they had been lecturing Horst about the lack of lighting in his photography and how he must overcome this style to shroud everything in the deepest mystery.

I really enjoyed his black and white portraiture of actors, models and artists alongside his newer coloured fashion photography for Vogue. The 1930s ushered huge advancements within colour photography which Horst adapted quickly and effortlessly creating some of Vogue's most visually daring and dazzling colour images.

                      

                      

(Above is a collection of images which I took whilst wondering around the V&A)

Another exhibition I saw was Disobedient Objects. "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you." The exhibition focuses on the period between the 70's to now, a time which has brought many new technologies and political challenges. Examining the powerful role of objects in movements for social change the exhibition demonstrates how political activism drives a wealth of design enterprise and collective creativity that defies the average definitions of art and design.
I learnt that many rights and freedoms we enjoy in this day and age were won by disobedience, which was made very obvious to me through the art work displayed in the exhibition. Each work of art individually withheld an important message; solidarity. We cannot change the world on our own, in order to change the world we as a community must stick together strategically in a common cause for movement building.
The artwork was not made by commercial designers, but by people collectively taking design into their own mindset and hands to change the world in their own way. Many of the artists and designers worked under duress with limited resources and used only their imagination and creativity to produce such art.

Although the power and incentive behind the pieces were extravagant and bold, paying great detail to the meaning and message behind the artwork I didn't feel the connection and lust towards these pieces as I did with Horst's art work.

After visiting the V&A Museum, myself and a few other girls from my class ventured around London to Harrods and various other shops for some retail therapy. We then jumped onto a train back to Liverpool St. and dined at GBK (which I was kindly introduced to by Amy which I am very grateful for!) which was amazing.