Abstract
The exhibition 'What is Luxury?' at the Victoria and Albert Museum interrogated general ideas about luxury, its production and future by scrutinizing the relationship of luxury to change, context and conventions. It included objects which demonstrated extraordinary investment in time and skill on the part of their makers as well as projects which investigated social, material and economic networks in order to stimulate alternative thinking about luxury's future.
Against general expectation, the exhibition was not focused on luxury consumption. Instead, inquiry seemed valuable in reflecting on motifs and motivations of luxury production to highlight the investment on side of the maker and enable speculations about possible futures. Such speculations reflected on current definitions of luxury and empowered thinking about relationships, provoked consequential developments and suggested alternatives. The curatorial approach was based on an understanding that meanings of luxury change according to its contexts.
The exhibition took the question as title serious but instead of providing a definition of luxury, the exhibition offered a terminology as structuring principle to highlight aspects and encourage individual interpretations of luxury.
The exhibition was divided into four consecutive sections: Creating Luxury, A Space for Time, A Future for Luxury, and What is Your Luxury? It started with the premise that luxury production implies and represents an investment in time and the application of skills. The next section asked whether luxury is fundamentally connected to time and space when luxury is defined by experiences of time spent and its availability. The important relationship between luxury and value was examined through projects that critically examined issues like access, privacy and memory. The final section highlighted the importance of individual freedom, aspiration and dream for any decision about luxury.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 25 Apr 2015 |
| Event | conference; 2015-04-25; 2015-09-27 - Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K. Duration: 25 Apr 2015 → 27 Sept 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Media: ExhibitionReviews: Guardian, Oliver Wainwright, 21 April 2015, The future of luxury goods - from toxic waste urns to a compass that helps you get lost,
Impact: This exhibition attracted over 250,000 visitors which was a phenomenal success at the time when the V&A presented its -in terms of visitor numbers- most successful exhibition 'Savage Beauty - Alexander McQueen'. The exhibition has also been critically acclaimed with international journalists and critics particularly applauding the risk taken with the critical approach to the subject.
The exhibition has been complemented with a series of events, in particular a research event 'Defining Luxury? conceived by Jana Scholze and Belgian curator and academic Jan Boelen with students of the Design Academy Eindhoven, students from the V&A/RCA History of Design course and selected members of V&A staff at Blythe House. The day long workshop interrogated the terminology suggested by the exhibition for a possible definition which was the result of the day. This definition was shared with the public in a conversation between Jan Boelen and the Dutch designer Job Smeets of celebrated 'Studio Job'.
The end of the exhibition was marked by an international symposium 'Relationships in Luxury: Exclusive Access' coinciding with the London Design Festival. The symposium did not only mark an important step in sharing the research conducted but actively encouraged the creation of new knowledge by extending the conventional format. In addition to inviting speakers such as the anthropologist Victor Buchli, we encouraged conversations between influential people in the luxury business provoking relationships for instance between art director Jason Basmajian of Gieves and Hawkes and Campbell McDougall, the owner of Darklands in Berlin.
A further output was an invitation to Jana Scholze to become a plenary speaker at the international conference 'Nouveau Reach. Past, Present and Future of Luxury', coorganised by Brock University and the School of `Fashion at Ryerson University, Toronto between the 11-14 May 2017 where I delivered the lecture 'Why Gather? The Luxury of Time and Space'.
Institution: Victoria and Albert Museum
Keywords
- Economics and econometrics