Louis Vuitton-Marc Jacobs; Two Worlds Collide

When making an innovation cake, it may be the best recipe to blend Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs together.  Of course the people at LVMH probably knew that, considering that Jacobs is Creative Director of Louis Vuitton.  But to put the two together in a museum exhibition is exquisite.  It is thoughtful.  Provoking.  Symmetrical.

Housed at the important and royal Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the "Louis Vuitton-Marc Jacobs" exhibit is only capable of inspiration, irritation and isolation.  Walking into the show, the bottom floor is filled with LV treasures, but it begins by telling the story of an era.  I was drawn to the doll's trousseau.  I always loved playing with dolls as a girl - perhaps that is why I love to collect and fill my closet with beautiful things.  Living the fantasy of a ten-year-old.  But to understand what M. Vuitton was facing as he tried to perfect the trunk was enlightening.  So many bits and pieces that were not so collapsable or rollable (as I prefer to pack my things).  

These garments were large and substantial. They required a ship.  And a serious trunk with drawers and removable pieces and jewelry boxes.  They carried quality not quantity.

But there was innovation in what M. Vuitton was doing.  Not only did he personify and characterize trunks, but he made them interesting and beautiful.  He made them a source of wonder for where the traveler was going.

Walking the exhibit you hear the trace calling of John Adams' The Chairman Dances: Two Fanfares for Orchestra leading you up the stairs to the Marc Jacobs portion of the show, you are transferred to a different world entirely.  Disparagingly so.  You are led to the world of video installation screens by curator, Pamela Golbin.  Meant to look like those of a Tumblr page, it is a collage of moving videos and still photographs providing a glimpse of Mr. Jacobs' inspirations. Also a musical collage, songs like It's A Hard Knocks Life, Louie Louie, Gypsies: by Cher, Memories: by Barbara Striesand emerge over.  And videos with scenes from movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Belle du Jour, Wizard of Oz  mixed with scenes from South Park, The Simpsons, Studio 54 and more, all create an image board of beauty.  Wonder.  Oddity.

I think I had died and gone to heaven.  And then came the reality of the ridiculous bags.  I guess they are a staple of LV.  A must have.  A Nutcracker of fashion.

But the clothes were shown beautifully in glass cages in various forms.  I particularly enjoyed the animal mannequins - the caged panther was delightful and evocative of something.  Our own imagination?

Finishing through the "peep show" of Mr. Jacobs' collections, as if it were something naughty to see or to be protected from the view of everyone, I escaped unscathed by waving nurses without faces, but with recognizable nurse hats spelling out "LOUIS".  The "VUITTON" missing.

             

To Bill Maher

I am a Democrat.

This is one of the charities of my choice.
(by the way it houses the LA Philharmonic not the LA Symphony)

This is another.

And here is another.

One more.

In your latest show (please everyone read the transcript of episode 247!!!) you trash charitable giving to the arts and argue that gifts to the arts should not be tax deductible. But modern civilization relies upon the gifts of its people to provide beauty and promise to everyone.  I support that calling.  As a dancer from just about birth, I have been privileged enough to study dance with greats like Bill T. Jones, Betty Jones of Jose Limon, Violette Verdy, Patricia McBride (one of the great Balanchine dancers and legacy teachers), Merce Cunningham, and the list goes on.  I have done these things as a student.  I remember making $150 a week, living in New York City as a nanny and spending every cent I had on my dance education.

I also attended Davidson Fine Arts School in Augusta, GA.  Davidson is an award winning public magnet school that introduced me to all genres of the arts.  There I studied Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Sophocles, Thoreau (on whom I wrote my college entrance essay).  It is a magnet school available to any student in Richmond County that shows an inkling of talent and dedication to the discipline of learning an art form.

I was the Executive Director for the Augusta Ballet for three years in Augusta, GA.  We tried to rely on performance tickets sales only, but that is surely impossible.  Watching the decline of the National Endowment for the Arts during my tenure as Director of Development for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company was not only sad for me as a taxpayer but also devastating as an artist.  I can only write that without the tax deduction for charitable donations, our country will be without ballet, without art museums, without theater, without Mozart, as you pointed out.  And any research study that is worth its salt out there confirms that all of these things only enhance the learning and development of our children.  The children that we want to grow up to help other children with disease, without homes, with horrible living conditions that could only be imagined with empathy, with a spirit enlightened by the arts.

You are wrong Mr. Maher.  Terribly terribly wrong.  What is great about this country, that I love and admire so very much, is that we support and lift up organizations that would die and become a withered hand without the support of its people.  And for peanuts we support the most inventive and vibrant arts communities in the world. In a fifteen trillion dollar economy, Americans give just seventeen billion dollars a year to the arts, so the tax deduction on these gifts costs the government just $5bn a year. For $5bn of lost tax revenue we get the world's greatest symphonies, dance companies, and art museums, supporting the most dynamic new artists on the planet. And though you may think that you help our country and our world to persuade people not to give to these institutions, you are indeed bringing down society with these barbaric ideas.