Off the Wall: American Art to Wear at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

10 November–17 May 2020 | Philadelphia

Tim Marlow, artistic director for London's Royal Academy of Arts, chooses the best exhibitions to see this month, presented by Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

T he Philadelphia Museum of Art is celebrating an American art movement that emerged in the late ‘60s in a major exhibition. Off the Wall: American Art to Wear will focus on artists working between 1967-1997 who led the way in creating art centred around the body and body-related forms.

woman in utility vest covered in found objects
Joan Steiner, Basement Vest, 1977. Photograph by Otto Stupakoff ©Julie Schafler Dale.

It will feature more than 100 one-of-a-kind wearable works and sculptures by 50 artists from this period, framing their thoroughly individual outputs within the cultural and social contexts of the time. Expect the spectacular, with works crossing the borders of discipline and imaginatively spilling out into fine art, textiles, craft, performance and fashion.

a woman in a shiny one piece of tooled, painted, laced, and stitched leather, suede, antique shoe buttons, and satin.
Nina Vivian Huryn, Tree Outfit, 1976. Promised gift of The Julie Schafler Dale Collection. Photograph by Otto.

Off the Wall: American Art to Wear will open in at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on 10 November 2019 and comes to an end 17 May 2020.

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