\u201cCostume Art<\/a>,\u201d the upcoming exhibition at The Met<\/a>, considers clothing in relation to works of art in the museum\u2019s collection using the \u201cdressed body\u201d as the point of connection. Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton\u2019s aim, he writes, is \u201creframing fashion as a primary site of visual and social formation\u201d\u2014rather than as an illustrative or lesser one. This elevation of fashion above frivolity, of placing it on equal footing with the painting, sculpture, and the like, is reflected in the catalog<\/a>, where artworks and dressed mannequins are shown side by side. Working with designer Anna Rieger, photographers Paul Westlake and Anna-Marie Kellen connect the objects and fashion by using gray backgrounds for each. The cropping of the images and positioning of the artworks emphasizes the symbiotic connections in the pairings.<\/p>\n The exhibition is organized around different body types: the naked and nude body, the pregnant body, the aging body, etc. These are introduced in the catalog with paper assemblages commissioned by Bolton from Julie Wolfe<\/a>, who worked in collaboration with photographer Nathalie Agussol. Together, Bolton and Wolfe used a 1+1=3 approach. The idea is that the assemblages are more than the sum of their parts, that the melding of art and fashion yields something new, \u201ca separate sort of hybrid entity,\u201d as Wolfe put it. \u201cI think this is brilliant of Andrew, because it sort of gives a different perspective on the pairings that are in the exhibition.\u201d The hope, she continues, is that the viewer or reader will \u201csee from their own perspective how they want to put the puzzle together.\u201d<\/p>\n Wolfe employs Exacto knives, scissors, and archival adhesives in her practice, often using unusual materials, like vintage book pages, as a foundation for her work, which she layers, writes, paints, or draws on, and sometimes overprints or gilds. \u201cI wanted to make these pieces very much analog in themselves, very much like a human touch, not perfect. There are cut marks and there are some irregularities and I love that sort of beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the catalog, the Metropolitan Museum will offer The Body Electric,<\/em> a keepsake box in a numbered edition of 500 that will include a signed and numbered print by Wolfe and unbound pages with which readers can curate their own connection between art and fashion.<\/p>\n Costume Art is published with Yale University Press.<\/em><\/p>\n CLASSICAL BODY: Assemblage by Julie Wolfe in which Rafaelle Monti\u2019s Veiled Woman<\/em> of 1854 meets a look from Maison Margiela\u2019s fall 2020 couture collection.<\/p>\n <\/span>Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/assets.vogue.com\/photos\/69e650c62a2a98a2a8ceb669\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/3.%2520CostumeArtCatalogueInterior.jpg\"\/)
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