What’s in a Narrative? Interpreting Yohji Yamamoto in the Museum

Abstract

Curators have used the work of fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto in over twentyfive museum-based exhibitions in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. This chapter questions what about Yamamoto’s work lends itself to different museum narratives, including those studying the histories of design, haute couture, radical fashion, and Japanese art. In part one, I explore the different ways Yamamoto’s work has been approached in seven exhibitions in Europe and North America in the past eight years, following the precepts set by a 1983 exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum positioning Yamamoto in a Japanese avant-garde group along with Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake. These approaches reflect the different spaces and backgrounds of the organisers, including curators of Asian art, architecture, and design and fashion specialists – costume curators or the designers themselves. In part two, I consider how curators used these contradictory narratives in the shaping of the only retrospective of Yamamoto’s work in 2005.

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