Fashion exhibition as a critique of contemporary museum exhibitions: The case of ‘Fashion India: Spectacular Capitalism’

The article pursues a critical inquiry, grounded in theory and practice, into the dominant trends in current organization of fashion exhibitions in museums. It presents the case of ‘Fashion India: Spectacular Capitalism’, an exhibition that I curated and designed at the Historical Museum in Oslo, and that was on display from 13 September 2013–13 September 2014. This exhibition was grounded in my ethnographic research, and conceptualized as a critique of current museum practices. The article outlines some themes of this exhibition that address uncritical approaches, which use the ‘aesthetic’ to mask hierarchies of power. These include the problems of exhibiting fashion as art, corporate and private sponsorships, fashion designers as co-curators, spectacular exhibition design (form) over content, and persistent policies of infantilization and patronage of the audiences.