Andrew Bolton: The exhibition is called Camp: Notes on Fashion, and it's inspired by Susan
Sontag's 1964 essay "Notes on Camp" that, in a way, outlined the elements or characteristics
of camp: irony, humor, parody, theatricalization, excess, extravagance, exaggeration.
The first half of the exhibition does trace the origins of camp.
The introduction is a section called "The Camp Beau Ideal."
It focuses on the figure of Antinous, Hadrian's lover, who has been embraced in the queer
culture by artists like Robert Mapplethorpe.
Each gallery has a hero or heroine.
So it starts off with Louis XIV and his brother Monsieur, a famous bisexual.
I wanted to trace the etymological origins of camp, and the first time it was mentioned,
that we found, is "camp" as a verb, in a novel by Molière, Scapin.
Scapin talks about camping on one leg, like a comedy king.
So immediately it has connotations of theatricality and performativity.
Chevalier d'Eon was a spy able to infiltrate the courts of Europe as a lady in waiting.
In a way, he was a precursor to camp and its relationship to crossdressing in the eighteenth century
So we have a wonderful dress by Jean-Paul Gaultier and it's based on an eighteenth-century
silhouette, but worn with a man's suit from the twentieth century.
And so it's a conflation of both masculine and feminine dress codes.
By the mid-nineteenth century, camp became associated with the queer community.
We look at the idea of camp as an adjective—"campy" or "campish."
We've traced its first origin to the mid-nineteenth century in a letter between Fanny and Stella.
They were prosecuted on crossdressing.
And the hero of another gallery is Oscar Wilde, famous for his epigrams.
And through his trials and the criminalization of homosexuality in the late nineteenth century,
he became a potent vehicle for camp as a noun, as a person.
And in that particular section, we have garments inspired by Oscar's wardrobe, both as an aesthete
and also as a dandy.
One of the first times that camp became associated with a style was in 1954, through Christopher
Isherwood's The World in the Evening, where he makes a demarcation between low camp—something
located in the queer world—and high camp—meaning baroque art, the ballet.
In 1934, Paul Cadmus painted a man wearing a very tailored, tight suit with a red tie
and bleached-blonde hair—which were all signifiers of queer culture in the early twentieth
century—surrounded by sailors.
Sailors being very much a sort of camp icon in the queer community.
So in the "Sontagian Camp" section, we are selecting works of art from The Met's collection
to illustrate her ideas of camp.
She highlights Crivelli, Caravaggio, Mannerist painting; she highlights Tiffany lamps, art
nouveau; in terms of fashion, she highlights beaded dresses from the 1920s—all ideas
of exaggeration and artifice.
Susan wrote "Camp" as a response to the Pop Art movement, particularly to Warhol.
Warhol became obsessed by Susan after she published "Camp," and referred to her as "Miss Camp."
It catapulted her as a celebrity, so she became, in a way, one of Andy Warhol's superstars.
One of the defining characteristics she talks about in her essay is this idea of failed
seriousness—too much, so to speak.
Too fantastic, too extravagant.
It's just too, too, too.
And she makes a distinction between "naïve camp" and "deliberate camp."
Naïve camp, she's finds much more rewarding because it was unconscious, as opposed to
deliberate camp, which was more self-conscious.
We're using the idea of failed seriousness as a bridge to a section that is about posturing
and about extravagant gesture.
The second half of the exhibition, we've called "Camp Eye," focusing on examples of the camp
aesthetic in fashion, post-Sontag's essay.
Each mannequin has a particular statement that articulates a particular aspect of camp.
Susan talks about how camp is a manifestation of snob taste, how camp is the dandyism of mass culture
Having one logo isn't camp, but having a whole suit completely emblazoned with logos is camp.
We have a section called "The Psychopathology of Affluence."
We have a Jeremy Scott that's printed with dollar bills.
Historicism is very much a part of camp ideology.
Notions of performativity are included in a section on the ballet and the opera as vehicles of camp.
We have Bjork's famous dress that she wore to the Academy Awards in the design of a swan,
where the swan's neck is literally wrapping around her neck.
We also have an opera coat, designed by Marc Jacobs, that has a jacquard of the opera star
Maria Callas.
"Camp Is a Second Childhood."
The idea of a babydoll dress on a grown woman, and indeed a grown man, is a camp statement.
We have a section called "The Mode of Enjoyment" that references the generosity behind camp.
One example is a coat shaped like a love heart, dyed red.
And we have a dress that's styled as a bouquet of flowers.
Camp is a gift that keeps on giving.
Camp is for people who are heroes but didn't set out to be heroes.
And for that statement, we have a floor-length coat made out of faux fur, out of the rainbow
flag, from Christopher Bailey's last collection for Burberry, which was a celebration of queer culture.
"Gender with Genitals" looks at exaggerated ideas of masculinity and femininity.
We have a wonderful dress by Jean Paul Gaultier that on the runway was worn, by Linda Evangelista,
with a hairdryer that pumped air into her garment to amplify her breasts and her buttocks.
We also have a jacket by Walter Van Beirendonck with inflatable muscles, this ridiculous he-man
as a vehicle for the camp aesthetic.
Part of that section is also the idea of "Gender without Genitals," which looks at younger
designers, such as Palomo Spain, who are trying to upend gender distinctions within dress
to create nonbinary clothing.
We have a wonderful bridegroom and bride in one, a sort of Victor-Victoria reference by
Thom Browne, where the front of it is a men's tuxedo and behind is a wedding dress.
We have one category called "Things Being What They're Not," which is a statement taken
from Susan's essay directly.
A dress in the form of a wedding cake, by Christian Lacroix.
Camp is inherently subjective, and that's part of its power and part of its charm—the
fact that it's always changing.
So you leave the exhibition still wondering what camp is, and being encouraged to think
about one's own definition of camp.
Camp is happiness. (multiple inaudible voices whisper the definition of camp)
Camp is a mode of perception. (multiple inaudible voices whisper the definition of Camp)
is by its very nature political. (multiple inaudible voices whisper the definition of Camp)
Camp is alive, subversive. Camp is dandyism (multiple inaudible voices whisper the definition of Camp)