KAAT DEBO___ MOMU
MoMu is one of the world’s premier fashion museums – with few to compare to. It certainly benefited from being in Antwerp, home to the indelible group of fashion designers known as the Antwerp Six, which made its mark in the 1980s. However, Belgium has a rich history of fashion and textiles that dates back centuries. We caught up with Kaat Debo, the Director of MoMu.
While the Antwerp Six made an indelible mark on this writer, Debo is as equally proud of the new crop of Belgium designs — Raf Simons, Veronique Branquinho, Jurgi Persoons and A.F Vandevorst. Other names roll off her tongue, including Bernhard Willhelm, Bruno Pieters, Haider Ackermann, Demna Gvasalia, and Glenn Martens. She attributes part of this talent to the presence of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. “They’ve trained so many talents over the past 50 years. It’s so important to keep on nurturing this fashion talent in order to keep on innovating and rethinking what Antwerp fashion, both as an art and as an industry, can be today,” says Debo.
Many people would have heard of the exhibitions staged at MoMu and thousands fortunate to have visited. There were solo shows with designers like Martin Margiela (both shows on the Maison Martin Margiela and Hermes), Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Bernhard Willhelm and Veronique Branquinho were milestone exhibitions. “The idea was always to create their creative world into an exhibition, an attempt to translate their creative processes and their way of thinking to the museum,” says Debo, who sees these exhibitions as experiments in fashion curation. While Melbourne is a long way from Antwerp, it was fortunate to hold an exhibition of Walter Van Beirendonck ‘Dream the World Awake’ in 2011 after it was shown in Antwerp. “In some ways Walter is at the periphery of the fashion industry. In the ‘90s his work was an important voice in the fight against HIV/Aids, a disease that hit the art and fashion world extremely hard. It traumatised and entire generation,” says Debo, who enjoys seeing how his pop culture, art, fairy tales or sci-fi came together for this landmark exhibition.
Although Debo can’t put precise words to why certain designers are exhibited at MoMu, she is always looking for those who ‘have a certain layering and who are able to speak to different audiences’. Debo also endeavours with every exhibition to add an emotional reaction as well as to inform, educate and inspire. “This is not an easy exercise. Lately we’ve experimented with live performance in our exhibitions.” Those visiting Antwerp towards the end of this year can expect to see ‘Eco. Wrapped in Memory’, curated by Elisa de Wyngaert, an exhibition that looks at the intimate connection between clothing and memory through the lens of three artists whose work shares a tactile and emotional intensity: artist Louise Bourgeois, designer Simone Rocha and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker – exploring the memories of baby, child and motherhood, aging and nostalgia, handmaking and repair, entwined with both the physical and emotional memories of clothing.
For Debo and her team at MoMu, an exhibition always starts with a dream. “But you have to translate it into the reality of what you can achieve. Budget is always a challenge. But smaller budgets also make one creative,” says Debo, who fortunately has a large network, both with museums, private collectors and art galleries. She cites part of MoMu’s success to the team of experts she collaborates with in every department of the museum. “I can have a great strategy or vision as a director, but I’m nothing without my team, their passion, expertise and dedication,” she adds.
In her role as the director of MoMu, Debo sees one of the most important skills is being able to understand how creative people work. “You don’t have to be an artist or designer yourself, but you have to be able to understand how creative people think and feel. If not, you’ll never get their trust to convince them to work with you,” says Debo, who sees the importance of being able to multi-task, having a team of 40 people.
While Debo has witnessed the great interest shown with MoMu over the decades, she also sees a younger audience too focused on the internet.
“That’s a huge mistake as the internet is very selective. We should keep on training students in how to research fashion history along with critical thinking. Unfortunately, I don’t think our education system today is ready for that.”
However, for those who aren’t constantly plugged into the internet and have the opportunity to visit MoMu, the experience and delight lingers well after an image from a computer screen fades.
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MoMu
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Text by Stephen Crafti.
Images supplied by MoMu.
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