Photo credit: www.vogue.com
When Torkwase Dyson received an invitation to design the exhibition space for “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, she approached the project without any prior connection to the department. Originating from Chicago and raised in the southern United States, Dyson primarily identifies as a painter, sculptor, and theorist.
Dyson humorously remarks, “I don’t have a big personal history with fashion,” reflecting on her experiences during our discussion. “I learned a lot working on this exhibition.”
Interestingly, Dyson had never attended a Costume Institute exhibition before this opportunity. To familiarize herself with the department’s scale and nature, she participated in a guided tour of last spring’s “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.” During this period, co-curator Monica Miller shared her own book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, which provided a scholarly backdrop for “Superfine.” According to Dyson, this encounter sparked a significant artistic revelation.
“It opened up a door for ambition that I had not recognized in the work until that moment,” she shares. “I don’t do design work—I’m a visual artist. But walking into ‘Sleeping Beauties’ was like entering another world. The intricacy of it was inspiring. It made me think about what embodied experience could look like within my own sculptural language.”
Although Dyson had no formal background in exhibition design, her artwork has consistently addressed themes of space, architecture, and Black liberation. Her creations have been showcased at prestigious institutions, including the Whitney Museum and Pace Gallery. The commission for “Superfine” provided her with a unique opportunity to transform a 10,000-square-foot gallery into a vibrant space that directly engages with the history of Black self-fashioning.
Rather than focusing on specific garments, Dyson opted to base her design on a conceptual framework. “I wanted to take the idea of the frame, or framing Black life, and use it as a force multiplier,” she describes. Building on this idea, she developed her architectural vocabulary, which she refers to as “hyper shapes.” These modular forms were designed to accommodate garments and objects of varied sizes while evoking a sense of dynamism and presence. “Some shapes consider volume, while others explore open space or enclosure,” she explains. “It was vital for each structure to fulfill the curators’ requirements while also narrating its own story.”
Source
www.vogue.com