Maude Bass-Krueger: French Fashion, Women, and the First World War

This talk will explore the decision making behind the exhibition French Fashion, Women, and the First World War, currently on view at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. An exhibition space dedicated to new research in the decorative arts, design history, and material culture, the BGC gallery is attached to a research institute of the same name. Both the gallery and the school strive to generate discussion around the practice of exhibition-making in order to push boundaries and exhibit research that is at the vanguard of the field. Issues to be addressed include: the issues inherent in moving an exhibition from one country to another (Paris to New York); the specificities of mounting a fashion exhibition; the conversation behind the coordination of the book, by Irma Boom in Amsterdam, and the exhibition; and the complexities behind untangling the three research narratives--fashion, women, and war--for the general public.

Bio

Maude Bass-Krueger is a professor in the Art History department at the University of Ghent. She researches and writes on visual and material culture, notably as it relates to fashion and architecture. She co-curated French Fashion, Women, and the First World War, which opened in Paris at the Bibliothèque Forney in February 2017 and in New York at the Bard Graduate Center in September 2019. She edited a book by the same name, which was just published by Yale University Press. She received her PhD from the Bard Graduate Center in 2016.