DESIGN:Architects,Visual Artists & Designers balance…in Killing Heels

Rashaad Newsome, Still from Knot, 2014. Brooklyn Museum Archive

Killer Heels explores fashion’s most provocative accessory. From the high platform chopines of 16th century Italy to the glamorous stilettos on today’s runways and red carpets, the exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum looks at the high-heeled shoe’s rich and varied history and its enduring place in our popular imagination as they are is every woman’s favorite fetish, either she can support them physically or even as object trouve- as expensive object of desire.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Brooklyn Museum Archive

Christian Louboutin, “Metropolis,” Fall-Winter 2010–11, Brooklyn Museum Archive

As fashion statement, fetish object, instrument of power, and outlet of artistic expression for both the designer, Artists architects and the wearer, throughout the ages the high-heeled shoe has gone through many shifts in style and symbolism as they are directly related to the culture and history of the peoples… Deadly sharp stilettos, architecturally inspired wedges and platforms, and a number of artfully crafted and elaborately shoes that defy categorization are featured among the more than 160 historical and contemporary heels on loan from designers artists and architects, from the renowned Brooklyn Museum costume collection housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and from the Bata Shoe Museum. Designers and design houses represented in Killer Heels include Manolo Blahnik, Chanel, Salvatore Ferragamo, Zaha Hadid X United Nude, Iris van Herpen X United Nude, Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, André Perugia, Prada, Elsa Schiaparelli, Noritaka Tatehana, Vivienne Westwood, and Pietro Yantorny. Presented alongside the objects in the exhibition are six specially commissioned short films inspired by high heels. The filmmakers are Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Zach Gold, Steven Klein, Nick Knight, Marilyn Minter, and Rashaad Newsome.

Info: Killer Heels, Curating: ALisa Small, Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, N. York, Duration: 10/9/14-15/2/15, Days & Hours: Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun: 11:00-18:00, Thu: 11:00-22:00, www.brooklynmuseum.org/home.php