Cristóbal Balenciaga, Musée Bourdelle, through July 16, 2017
A dialogue between two geniuses is taking place at one of Paris’ most charming small museums, the Musée Bourdelle, which was once the studio of sculptor Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929). Balenciaga, Working in Black is devoted to the work of Spanish fashion legend Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895-1972), one of the 20th century’s most mysterious artists in the realm of clothing design.
The museum still resembles a workshop, with finished and unfinished sculptures standing among the sculptor’s instruments, sketches, plaster casts and personal belongings. Balenciaga’s fashion items make the surreal impressions of the space even stronger. In a career that spanned half a century, Balenciaga never gave a single press interview. He lived very privately and was known to almost no one. He was called a “fashion monk,” and his Paris fashion house got the nickname “the fashion monastery.” The clothes that he designed bore the same aura of mystery as their creator. Critic Diane Vreeland once wrote that “in a Balenciaga, you were the only woman in the room. No other woman existed.” One of Balenciaga’s trademarks was experimentation with volume and pattern; seams were reduced to the bare minimum. His language was fabric and scissors, and his works have not aged at all.
16 rue Antoine Bourdelle
www.bourdelle.paris.fr