Camp

The Costume Institute delves into the parody,pastiche and theatricality of camp, exploring how this once private code has been embraced by mainstream style in myriad ways

Ensemble by Jeremy Scott for House of Moschino, SS18, courtesy of Moschino, United States

Alessandro Michele for Gucci, FW16–17, courtesy of Gucci Historical Archive

“To talk about Camp is to betray it", posited Susan Sontag in the introduction to her seminal and controversial essay on the topic. The late American writer penned her Notes on ‘Camp’ back in 1964, and it was a sensation. As her first contribution to Partisan Review, the prose served as a comprehensive pulse check, an explanation of subtext, a charting of camp's evolution, and secured Sontag intellectual notoriety.

Her essay took the form of 58 notes, and included a list of "random examples of items that are part of the canon of Camp" – among them Tiffany lamps, Aubrey Beardsley drawings, Swan Lake, certain turnof-the-century picture postcards, and the Cuban pop singer La Lupe.

“At the time she wrote her essay, camp was largely ‘a private code’ and ‘a badge of identity’ among small urban cliques,” explains Andrew Bolton, the curator of a current exhibition at The Met, which is using Sontag’s insight as the axis for an immersive investigation.

It changed the privacy of camp “irrevocably,” he elaborates. “She essentially catapulted camp into the mainstream, where it’s remained ever since.”

Sontag wrote that if you look at art through camp eyes, a Caravaggio painting has the same visual appeal as a Flash Gordon comic"

At the press introduction to the exhibition, held at Teatro Gerolamo, the curator noted that, “The word camp first entered the hallowed and sanctioned ‘space’ of a dictionary – Ware’s Dictionary of English Slang and Phrase – in 1909. The entry read: ‘Actions and gestures of exaggerated emphasis. Used chiefly by persons of exceptional want of character.’” There have been moments when camp has come to the fore “to become the defining aesthetic or sensibility of the times, reflecting the zeitgeist,” says the fashion expert. “The 1960s was one such moment, as were the 1980s, and, arguably, the times in which we’re now living.” He told The New York Times that "Whether it’s pop camp... high camp or political camp – Trump is a very camp figure – I think it’s very timely."

This year The Met is grabbing the bull by its feathered boa. For starters, it has selected ‘camp’ as the theme for its annual Costume Institute Benefit: the showstopping society-soiree also known as The Met Gala, held on 6 May.

Previous themes have been as diverse as ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’, ‘Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology’, and ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between’. This time, the invitation-only attendees have been tasked with capturing the parody, pastiche and theatricality of camp.

Then there is the immersive exhibition titled Camp: Notes on Fashion, made possible by Gucci, which serves as the topical reflection behind the red-carpet regality.

“It’s an examination of how fashion designers have used their métier as a vehicle to engage with camp in a myriad of compelling, humorous, and sometimes incongruous ways,” Bolton enthuses. A

simple understanding of camp’s far-reaching influence could be gleaned simply by reading the line-up of the designers whose ensembles will be featured. They include heavyweights

Bertrand Guyon for House of Schiaparelli, FW18–19 haute couture, courtesy of Schiaparelli

Jeremy Scott for House of Moschino SS17, courtesy of Moschino. All images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art / © Johnny Dufort, 2019

such as Giorgio Armani, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nicolas Ghesquière (for Louis Vuitton), Bertrand Guyon (for House of Schiaparelli), Demna Gvasalia (for Balenciaga), Karl Lagerfeld (for House of Chanel, Chloé, and Fendi), Mary Katrantzou, Alessandro Michele (for Gucci), Yves Saint Laurent, Elsa Schiaparelli, Hedi Slimane (for Saint Laurent), and Donatella Versace.

The Met, of course, seeks to delve deeper – and the language used by Sontag in her concise observations are the key to unlocking understanding. Another influential text is that of David Isherwood, who in his 1954 novel The World in The Evening first introduced the concept of camp as an aesthetic sensibility, by presenting it as a dichotomy – High Camp versus Low Camp.

“For Isherwood, High Camp ‘is the whole emotional basis of the Ballet’ and ‘of Baroque art,’ a sophisticated connoisseurial mode by which ‘to discuss aesthetics or philosophy,’” quotes Bolton.

“Isherwood regards it as ‘much more fundamental’ than Low Camp, which he considers as ‘an utterly debased form’. Sontag expanded on Isherwood’s concept of camp as an aesthetic sensibility in Notes on ‘Camp’, which is the heart of the exhibition both physically and philosophically.”

In the introduction to her essay, she asserted that, “The essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.”

She goes on to argue that camp “has an affinity for certain arts rather than others” – giving fashion as an example because of its emphasis on “texture, sensuous surface, and style at the expense of content.” (Incidentally, Sontag only gives two examples of

Like most four-letter words, camp invites debate. But unlike most four-letter words, it evades definition"

fashion in her aforementioned list: “women’s clothes of the 1920s” and “a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers.”)

For this show, which will be divided into two parts, Sontag serves as the ghost narrator. In the first, she is the ghost of camp’s past, tracing both its etymological and phenomenological origins and taking visitors on a journey that begins in the court of Louis XIV – where the word camp was first used by Molière in his 1671 play The Impostures of Scapin, to mean 'theatricality.' Then, in the second part, she plays the role of ‘the ghost of camp’s present and future’.

The design, masterminded by scenographer Jan Versweyveld, is also twofold; while the first part will be presented as a series of narrow corridors with low ceilings ‘to underscore the clandestine, underground nature of camp before Sontag outed it in the 1960s,’ the second part will be presented as a large, open piazza ‘to highlight its acceptance and integration into mainstream culture.’

“In the first part, Susan’s voice will be heard as a quiet whisper, while in the second it will be heard as a deafening, earsplitting scream,” Bolton clarifies.

Sontag was actually no stranger to The Met. She would visit “religiously” every Sunday, and many artworks that she mentions in her 1964 essay are taken from The Met’s collection, such as Crivelli’s Madonna and Child. “As in her essay, they’ll be presented randomly to underscore her concept that camp has an equalising and democratising effect on art – that if you look at art through camp eyes, a Caravaggio painting has the same visual appeal as a Flash Gordon comic,” illustrates Bolton.

What’s more significant to understanding and appreciating fashion as a vehicle for camp is Sontag’s analysis of its modes of expression. These include irony, humour, parody, pastiche, duplicity, ambiguity, theatricality, extravagance, and exaggeration, among many others.

“Sontag in her essay argues that the ‘Camp eye has the power to transform experience’ but ‘not everything can be seen as Camp. It’s not all in the eye of the beholder.’ That’s not been my experience,” counters Bolton.

“When it comes to fashion – or rather when it comes to looking at fashion through a pair of camp spectacles – it’s all in the eye of the beholder. It’s this subjectivity that underpins its mutability and capriciousness.”

Indeed Bolton admits that he is not helming an omniscient survey. “Like most four-letter words, camp invites debate. But unlike most four-letter words, it evades definition,” he says. “For this reason, the exhibition raises more questions than it answers. For example: ‘Is camp kitsch?’ ‘Is camp political?’ And ultimately, ‘What is camp?’ The only answer to these questions is – as the historian Gregory Bredbeck has suggested – a camp one: ‘Only one’s hairdresser knows for sure.’” The Costume Institute’s spring 2019 exhibition – 'Camp: Notes on Fashion' – shows from 9 May to 8 September this year. metmuseum.org/camp